Can't Let Go
by Blue Butterfly 128
Summary: Rob Van Dam has finally met the woman of his dreams, but their road of love may not lead to happily ever after...
1. Chapter 1: Bad Day

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Disclaimer: I unfortunately don't own Rob Van Dam. But I do own Ella and to my knowledge, the plot as well.

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Rating: PG-13. It might change once I start getting into this story more. Not sure yet.

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Author's Note: Ok… so this is a story to go with another story I wrote, which is actually just two song fics. It's called Letting Go… Or Holding On? if any of you who haven't read it want to. Um… this is the story behind the song fics… but I just realized that they kind of ruin the story… Well if you are going to read Letting Go… Or Holding On? and haven't, read it after I finish this one, which I'm warning you, my take a while. I have the tendency to start things, including many stories, and not finish them. And I can never think of a good title until I'm like half way through the story… so it will _probably_ change and I'll tell you when if you keep reading this story for that long. Well ok… that's enough rambling from me so here's the story.

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Chapter 1: Bad Day - June 15, 2003

'Finally,' thought Rob. He got out of his rental and pulled out his bag from the backseat. Tossing the keys to the valet, Rob wearily walked through the double doors to the hotel he was staying at. Thankfully he had checked in earlier and didn't have to deal with waiting in line behind that woman to check in and searching endlessly for his suite. He walked down a hallway; rooms passed blurrily. Finally he reached an elevator.

After pushing the up button and waiting impatiently for a few seconds, there was ding indicating an elevator ready to take him up to his room. He stepped in and pushed the button with the number 7 on it.

"Wait!" a female voice called out as the doors began to slide together.

Rob quickly stuck his hand out, pushing them apart and keeping the elevator open.

The woman hurriedly walked into the elevator and pushed the button with a 4 on it. "Thank you."

"No problem," Rob replied. Though he was feeling extremely fatigued, his senses whetted suddenly. He let his gaze roam her body subtly. 

As Rob began taking in her features, the elevator lurched to a stop.

"Great," the woman muttered to herself.

She appeared to stand at about 5'10" with a lean build. Her light brown hair was straight until the end where it curled both inwards and outwards and reached her bust line. Her chest wasn't as ample as most of the divas, but gave her a sultry curve nonetheless. A briefcase and small suitcase were held in her perfectly French manicured hands. Her legs were revealed to be long and tan in a business skirt.

Rob quickly shook himself out of his trance and replied, "There must be a power shortage or something."

"Yeah," she murmured in return to his comment, not looking at him.

Not able to resist, he allowed his gaze to return to her body. He noticed that she was standing practically rigid. She kept her gaze forward.

Figuring that he had made her uncomfortable, he attempted to lighten the atmosphere. "Hi. I'm Rob," he said with a grin, extending his hand.

She briefly looked at his hand then up to his face warily with her hazel eyes. "Ella," she said with a faint questioning tone.

"Nice to meet you." He put his hand down when he realized that she wouldn't take it. "So what brings you to Houston?"

"Work," she answered coldly.

"Really? What do you do?"

"I'm a marketing consultant," she replied.

"Impressive."

"I'm not here to impress you."

"Never said you were."

She quickly looked him up and down. She looked him in the eyes then looked forward again. She began to tap the toe of her right foot anxiously.

"Excuse me," a male voice began through an unnoticed speaker in the corner, "the elevators are having some difficulties due to a wiring problem. We have our repairmen working on getting the elevators working again. They should be done shortly. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your patience."

After a few awkward minutes of silence, the elevator still had not begun to move.

"Hope we're not in here for too long," Rob anticipated.

Ella gave curt nod in agreement.

"So your name's Ella. I've never met anyone with that name."

"It's short for Isabella," she said, getting irritated with him. Didn't he pick up the hints that she didn't want to talk to him and just wanted him to leave her alone? Obviously not since he began talking again.

"Beautiful name for a beautiful lady."

"If that's supposed to be a line, I wouldn't use it," she scoffed.

"It's a compliment."

"I don't want a compliment."

"You know, I'm just trying to be polite and make pleasant conversation, but if you're gonna be such a… well… pardon my language, but a bitch, then fine. Have it your way," Rob relinquished.

Ella sighed with guilt. "I'm sorry. I'm just having a bad day."

Rob stuck his nose in the air and turned his head away.

"I apologized. What more do you want?"

"How about you tell me what's wrong and let me take you out for lunch tomorrow," Rob requested, bringing his head back down and looking her in the eyes.

"I have a… meeting with a client tomorrow."

"A meeting? Look, if you don't wanna go out with me, then just say so."

Ella turned her body towards him. "Well, it's kind of a meeting."

"Kind of?"

"Yeah."

"Well, what made your day so bad?"

"Well, this morning when I got to work, late might I add, they told me that I had to fly here for my new client. So I had to go home and pack. I couldn't find a suitcase when I realized that I had let my best friend borrow it. So I put everything I wanted to pack into the backseat of my car. Then I drove over to her house and got my suitcase and pretty much packed in her driveway. Then I went to the office to pick up my ticket and they misplaced it so we spent 45 minutes looking for it. Then I went to the airport and that took forever because of traffic. Then it took me another forever to check my luggage in. Then I finally found my terminal and my flight left five minutes before I got there. So I had to go and get my ticket exchanged, which took about an hour. Then I spent another two hours waiting for my flight. I finally got on. But then the plane was having maintenance problems so the flight was delayed for about an hour and a half. We finally got in the air and I got nauseous because I don't usually fly. Then once I landed, some old lady and a few other people kept stealing my cabs that I had hailed. Then I finally get to the hotel and the person at the front desk says I have no reservation, which my office was supposed to take care of and pay for. So I had to pay for the hotel room myself with most of my money I brought, which was really only for food and in case of an emergency. It's actually a good thing that my meeting isn't today," Ella mused. "So now I'm this close," she illustrated, holding her thumb and index finger close together with a narrow gap between the two, "to ending the day and I get stuck in an elevator. So I'm sorry if I'm not in the best mood."

Rob had been listening patiently as she partially rambled about, partially narrated her day and its events. "Sorry," was all he had to offer her. He had had a pretty good night. He and Glen had retained the title of Tag Team Champions and the belts; his was currently hiding in his duffle bag.

"It's not your fault."

The elevator gave a lurch and resumed its original destination. Once it had reached the fourth floor, it opened the doors and Ella made her way out. "Looks like my luck's changing," Ella mused to herself, exiting the elevator. Rob followed.

"Are you staying on this floor too?" she asked, noticing Rob was walking next to her.

"Actually I'm a few floors up, but I figured I should at least walk you to your door."

"At least?" she questioned, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

"I figured we could talk on the way. Maybe even laugh a little. You know, all that wild and crazy stuff."

Ella grinned at him. "You know how to live on the wild side."

"It all comes with the territory."

"You have territory?"

"Yeah. You know… the… bad boy territory," he bluffed.

This earned a laugh from Ella. Rob noticed how stunning she looked when she laughed. 'So her name's not the only beautiful thing about her,' Rob thought to himself, inadvertently gawking at her.

"Does that mean that your day just got a little brighter?"

"Yes, it did. Thank you."

"Hey, what kind of knight in shining armor would I be if I didn't save a damsel in distress?"

"I'm not some helpless damsel," she corrected him.

"Of course you're not."

"Thank you. But you're not exactly my vision of a night in shining armor anyways."

"And why not?" Rob asked with mock offense.

"You just don't look… royal enough."

"Are you calling me a commoner?"

"Not _exactly_ that word, but since you put it that way, it works."

Rob glared at her playfully.

"You may be the vision of a knight in shining armor to some other woman, but not mine," she teased.

"Why not?"

"My knight is darker, taller, and handsome."

"Are you calling me ugly."

"Not directly," she laughed.

"Well you're not all that yourself, Ms. Thang," Rob imitated a black person, snapping his fingers as he said "thang."

Ella shook her head at Rob, giggling at his childish antics.

"So what about lunch?"

"What about it?" Ella retorted.

"Does your meeting mean a 'no' on lunchr?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"What about some other time?"

"I'm leaving the day after tomorrow."

"That's ok, I don't live here either."

Ella gave him a bemused look. "Well, that would make sense as to why you're staying in a hotel," she thought aloud, suddenly feeling stupid.

"Yeah, it would."

"Well, I guess this is goodbye then."

"What?" Rob asked. He looked around and realized that they were at her room, and had been for a quite a while "We're already here. Well, yeah. I guess this goodbye then."

"Yeah."

The two stood there, neither making an attempt to part ways.

"I should get going," Rob began.

"Yeah," Ella agreed.

"Night."

"Good night," Ella said to Rob's retreating back. She pulled out her key card from her pocket and slid it into the slot. Once the little light bulb flashed green, she grabbed the knob and let herself in. Allowing the door to shut behind her she looked around the small room. She set her stuff down at the foot of the double size bed. Suddenly realizing how tired she was from her disastrous day, she flopped down onto her back on the bed. She bent her left leg over her right, putting it just within reach of her right hand. Resignedly, she pulled her high-heel off and tossed it on the floor. Doing the same thing with her other foot, it took her a good two minutes to take off her shoes. Gradually she unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off her shoulders. Needing a shirt, she sat up and grabbed her suitcase, rummaging through it for the t-shirt she had packed to sleep in. Finding it, she pulled it on over her head. Ella stood up and unzipped her skirt, letting it pool at her feet. Her thigh-high nylons were the last to go. After pulling on a pair of pajama pants, she collapsed back onto the bed.

Hearing her stomach grumble, Ella came to the conclusion that she couldn't sleep without eating something. She hadn't dared touch the airplane food earlier. Rolling over to the edge of the bed, she picked up the room service menu and scanned it for something that appealed to her taste. After a few minutes, she decided on chicken in some sort of sauce with some steamed vegetables. She called and was told her food would be arriving in about fifteen minutes.

Bored, Ella grabbed the remote to the television and began flipping through the channels. She found a menu for specially ordered channels: adult and pay-per-views. Ella passed on the porn and scanned the list of pay-per-views. She noticed that the WWE's Bad Blood was showing now. For a few moments, she contemplated on spending more money to buy the pay-per-view or wait. Finally, she reasoned she could start her research that night and ordered it.

About ten minutes after she began watching, her food arrived. She thanked the man who had delivered her food and took it to her bed, eating as she watched. She had finished most of her food in about twenty minutes and the rest of her uneaten food sat on a small table next to the television. To make herself more comfortable, Ella lay down on her stomach. However, not too much later, she had drifted into a peaceful slumber, just barely missing Rob's entrance for his match.

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Another Author's Note: Ok… so that was the first chapter. So now go and **review it!** I hope you guys liked it, and if you didn't, please don't be_ too_ mean. I can't believe that he lost the tag titles though! But I guess it's kind of ok because Rene Dupree is SO hot! Don't ya think? But ok… remember to review!!!


	2. Chapter 2: Dinner For Three?

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Disclaimer: Said it in the first chapter.

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Rating: Still PG-13 for now.

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Author's Note: K… in my first note at the beginning of Chapter 1, I said it was the story behind Letting Go… Or Holding On?. I dunno if it is gonna be that. It might or it might not. Or it might only partially go with it. Not sure until I write it. But yeah. And I'm still waiting for the title to come to me. And… lemme think. Is there anything else I wanna say? I can't remember. So here's the next chapter!

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Chapter 2: Dinner For Three? - June 16, 2003

Tossing his bag into the wooden cubbyhole reserved for him, Rob continued to tell the other guys about Ella. "She's beautiful. Gorgeous smile. _Great_ legs."

"Why do you always find the hot women?" Jason Reso asked taking a seat on the bench.

"'Cause I'm R-V-D," Rob answered, doing his thumb thing. "Besides dude, you're married. But she's really smart too."

"What makes you say that? Did she say a word with more than two syllables?" Chris Irvine scoffed pulling on his shirt, which he always left open.

The other guys chuckled at Chris' remark.

"Funny," Rob said dryly. "No, she's a marketing consultant."

"Her job title alone has more than two syllables per word!" Chris laughed.

Rob punched him lightly, smiling as Chris faked to be seriously injured by Rob's blow.

"So did you get her number?" Shane Helms asked.

"No. I asked her out to dinner and she said she couldn't 'cause of her meeting," Rob replied, a hint of disappointment in his voice. "Besides, she still in Houston until tomorrow."

"You were right," Chris said with surprise. "She is smart," he joked.

Rob had a half-hearted smile on his face.

Noticing this, Chris said, "You know I was just joking man. I'm sure she was hot and everything-"

"And smart," Rob interjected.

"And smart," Chris added, "but you're not gonna see her again." Chris put an arm around his friend, attempting to console him. "Why don't we find you a nice girl to take home to Michigan?"

Rob sighed knowing Chris was right. "Yeah. What are the chances of us running into each other again?"

"How much did you even know about her? I bet she gets really annoying after a while," Jay comforted his friend.

"She just seemed so… perfect." Rob's thoughts strayed back to her. He groaned in frustration. "I don't know why I'm thinking about her so much! I just met her last night. We didn't even talk that long."

"Yeah," Shane agreed. "Move on. There's someone else out there for you."

"But I just can't stop thinking about her!" Rob exclaimed, realizing he was picturing Ella in his mind.

"Well, you know what they say, 'Out of sight, out of mind,'" Chris quoted.

"I'm proof that that's not true," Rob retorted.

"Would you at least _try_ to work with me here?" Chris complained.

Rob gave him a questioning look. "_You_ are gonna help me?"

"Yeah," Chris replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Who else?"

"I could say something to that…" Rob trailed off.

Chris glared at him, knowing an insult was coming.

"But I won't," Rob said, shrugging.

Chris was partially surprised. "Well good," he nodded approvingly.

"So… _you're_ gonna help me… let's hear it," Rob gave in.

"Stephanie McMahon. Stephanie McMahon," Ella muttered to herself while looking for a room with a sign reading "General Mangers - Stone Cold Steve Austin and Eric Bischoff." She had a meeting scheduled with Vince and Stephanie McMahon in there. "Why does that name sound so familiar?" Ella asked herself. Sighing in submission, she pushed the nagging feeling of familiarity to the back of her mind.

She finally found the door with the sign she was looking for. Before knocking, she straightened her clothes and put her head up, giving her a look of professionalism.

After being instructed to enter from the other side of the door, she confidently opened the door and walked in.

"Hello," an aged, yet fit man greeted. He offered her his hand.

"Hello," she returned, taking his hand. "I'm Isabella Taylor."

"Isabella Taylor?" Vince repeated questioningly.

"Yes," she replied.

"Ella Taylor?" Stephanie exclaimed.

"Yeah," Ella replied unsurely.

"It's me! Stephanie! We were neighbors when we were like… 11!"

Ella thought for a moment, trying to remember. She had lived in Connecticut from when she was born to until she was about 10 or 11 and they moved to Boston. Her eyes widened and she gasped as the realization dawned on her that she and Stephanie had been best friends until she moved. "Stephanie!" shrieked, embracing the other woman. "I knew your name sounded familiar! Vince! It's so good to see you two!"

"You too," Vince replied, smiling at the reunion of his daughter and her childhood friend.

"I hardly recognized you!" Ella confessed to Stephanie.

"Well, the last time we saw each other _was_ when we were 11-years-old," Stephanie, laughed.

"True," Ella agreed.

"You look, almost the same Vince," Ella started. "Except for the whole, gray hair thing," Ella teased.

Stephanie laughed at Ella's comment.

Vince glared jokingly at Ella, who merely gave him the most innocent look she could muster without laughing.

"Well," Stephanie said, regaining her composure, "we're supposed to be having a meeting." Stephanie then proceeded to lead Ella over to the desk and sat Ella down. Stephanie took the seat next to Ella and Vince sat on the other side of the desk.

"Right," Ella concurred, pulling out some papers from her briefcase and scattering them on the desk. "Now…"

"Seriously!" Chris exclaimed. "We just have to find you another girl. Then you'll forget all about her."

"So what if I meet a girl? Doesn't mean she's gonna wanna come home with me," Rob pointed out.

"At least _try _to be optimistic," Chris sighed.

"Fine. I'll go along with it," Rob gave in.

"Alright. Now I'm gonna go find some chick for you to sweep off her feet," Chris said, running off.

"Well, I'm gonna go and make sure everything's ready for the show," Vince excused himself once the meeting was over.

"So," Stephanie started after Vince closed the door, "how have you been?"

"I've been good. You guys are actually my first client. I just joined the company," Ella answered happily. "What about you?"

"I'm the general manager of Smackdown. That's the WWE's other TV show. But I'm here in case the creative team can do anything to help marketing. And I'm engaged," Stephanie squealed about the last part.

Ella gasped in excitement. She grabbed Stephanie's left had and found a large diamond ring hugging Stephanie's finger. "That thing is _huge_! So who's the lucky guy?"

"His name's Paul Levesque. He's a wrestler. I can introduce you to him later."

"I remember we thought you'd marry what's-his-face…"

"Jake!"

"Yes! Him!"

"And we thought you'd end up marrying Shane," Stephanie laughed, making a face at the same time.

"How is he anyways?"

"Married."

"Really? I remember I used to get so pissed at you 'cause you kept making fun of me liking Shane."

"I always kind of hoped you two would get married though, you know, so you could 'officially' be my sister… well, sister-in-law. But that's close enough."

"Yeah. Me and Shane," Ella mused. "I remember he was my first kiss."

Stephanie made a disgusted face but ended up laughing. "Gross!"

"I was 6. I had no taste," Ella reminded her friend.

"So what happened?"

"Let me try to remember." After a pause, Ella resumed her tale, recalling the scene. "We were 6 and we had just planned our weddings to Jake and Shane."

"I remember that list we made too! We were gonna go to Chuck E. Cheese's for our honeymoons together!"

"Yeah. And then Shane came out and told you that your mom or dad wanted to talk to you so you went inside and I stayed outside. And then Shane stayed too. He started teasing me about something and I got so mad that I went over to him and kissed him on the lips." Ella smiled. "Then I ran inside."

Stephanie giggled. "We had so much fun together."

"Yeah."

"Well, it's fun catching up, but I'm starving. How about we grab something to eat?"

Ella corresponded and the two girls walked out of the office arm-in-arm.

"I found the perfect girl for you to woo," Chris informed Rob.

"Already?" Rob asked surprised that Chris had put his plan to find Rob another girl into action so quickly.

"Yeah. I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her yet, but I saw her not too long ago and she is hot!" Chris assured his friend.

Rob looked warily at Chris, wondering what he had just gotten himself into. "You have no clue who she is?"

"She might be that new diva everyone's been talking about backstage. She's supposed to debut tonight," Chris enlightened his friend.

"Oh yeah. I heard about her."

"Can you at least _pretend_ to be a little more enthusiastic? This woman could be _The_ One."

"Or she could _not _be The One," Rob retorted.

"You agreed to go along with this!" Chris argued.

Rob sighed. "Ok. You go find her and I'll meet her. I'm gonna go eat because you told me to stay here 'cause you _said_ you would be bringing me back The One and I had to wait here for you."

"At least I have some idea of who The One is," Chris offered as a condolence.

Rob rolled his eyes at Chris and walked out of the locker room. He went past a few doors, took a few turns and ended up at catering. 'Food!' Rob thought joyously to himself. He grabbed a plate and began piling various food onto it. After filling his plate, he grabbed a fork and a few napkins. He scanned the room when he noticed Stephanie was sitting with a woman that looked uncannily like Ella from the side. He was either so hungry that he was hallucinating, or he just thought of Ella _that_ much to imagine her there. Deciding to investigate, he walked over to Stephanie's table.

"Hey Rob," Stephanie greeted warmly.

"Hey Steph," Rob returned.

Stephanie's friend turned her head so that she was facing Rob completely.

"Hi Rob," Ella said, surprise evident in her voice.

"Ella," he replied breathily.

"You two know each other?" Stephanie inquired eyeing the two.

"Remember I was telling you about how horrendous my day was yesterday?" Ella asked.

"Yeah," Stephanie answered almost suspiciously.

"He was the guy in the elevator!" Ella exclaimed.

"Oh. Well, that's Rob for ya. Always the gentleman," Stephanie teased. "Sit down," she instructed Rob.

As Rob took a seat he asked, "Aren't you still supposed to be in Houston?"

"I was, but my office called this morning around 7 and told me that I was supposed to meet with my client here in Dallas instead. So they put me on another plane and now I'm here," Ella explained.

"The WWE's your client?" Rob questioned.

Ella nodded.

Just then, Chris Irvine rushed over to the table and stuck himself between Ella and Stephanie so that he was across from Rob. "I looked all over for her, but I couldn't find her," Chris told Rob, "but I will," he vowed. Without even looking at Ella or Stephanie, he ran off to find Rob's The One.

Rob laughed at the irony of the situation. Chris had just run off to find a girl to take Rob's mind off the one he was sitting next to.

"What was that about?" Ella asked, obviously confused.

"That was Chris. He's just trying to find some girl to hook me up with," Rob replied nonchalantly.

"Why?" Stephanie queried.

Rob shrugged. "Who knows? It's Chris after all."

"True," Stephanie concurred, nodding.

"So, are you staying for the show?" Rob directed his question to Ella.

"Yeah. I guess you could call it research," Ella responded.

"So how about dinner now?" Rob smiled cheekily, taking a bite of his food.

Ella beamed. "For three?"

Rob then remembered Stephanie was still sitting there. He couched slightly.

Stephanie obviously picked up the hint as she excused herself and told Ella she would see her later. She then went to eat with Paul, who had luckily for Stephanie just walked in.

"Well, looks like it's a 'yes' for dinner," Rob jokingly gloated.

"Looks like it. Aren't you lucky?" she said more as a statement than question.

"You think _I'm_ the lucky one? I'll have you know that you are eating with R-V-D."

"What's that stand for?"

"Rob Van Dam. Wrestling name."

"What's the real name?"

"Rob Szatkowsky. Try spelling _that_."

"I'll pass."

"Well, what's your last name?"

"Taylor. Try spelling _that_." she mimicked.

"I'll pass," he imitated her back.

"You think you're just _so_ cool," she teased.

"No," Rob replied offended. "I _know_ I'm cool," he informed her grinning.

"You keep thinking that…"

Rob huffed before responding. "I will."

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Another Author's Note: Right. I just wanted to say earlier that 'cause I'm not sure if I'm gonna follow Letting Go… Or Holding On?, don't read it until I'm done with this one! Please. And thanks to the people who reviewed. And if you're not one of those people, go review my story now! Please.


	3. Chapter 3: Whipped

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Disclaimer: Still where I left it (in the first chapter).

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Rating: Still the same

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Author's Note: K. Here's the third chapter. Yay! Ok. So go read it now and then review. Easy enough? Read then review. Read then review. Now you go. Read then review. Good job. Now go and read (then review)!

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Chapter 3: Whipped

Stacy Keibler was suddenly bumped on the hip, pushing her away from the center of the large mirror in the women's locker room. The woman that pushed her away from the mirror was about 5'6" and had blond hair to her shoulders that flipped out. She had large breasts, a tiny waist, and an orangey tan. Stacy already didn't like her.

"Excuse me, but you just bumped into me when I was putting on my makeup," Stacy said, attempting to sound polite.

"And do you need it," the woman replied coldly, eyeing Stacy up and down.

"You must be the new diva," Stacy assumed, strongly resisting the urge to punch the woman.

"I guess everyone already knows me," Stacy's new co-worker gloated.

Stacy raised an eyebrow at the arrogant comment. "I'm sorry. I don't know your name."

Obviously irritated by Stacy, the woman sighed and said, "I'm Kylie Tompkins." She then returned to applying her foundation.

"I'm Stacy Keibler."

After a pause, she put down the lip liner she had just applied, Kylie turned to face Stacy. "Listen. I'm not here to become every divas new best friend, like you're even worth it. I'm here to do my job, get paid, and prove that I am better than every whore on the roster." Though a few inches shorter than Stacy, Kylie didn't flinch at the glare that was being returned by Stacy.

"Good luck with that. You have a lot of competition," Stacy informed Kylie. With that, she picked up her little makeup bag, tossed it into her duffel bag and walked out of the locker room.

Kylie watched with detest as the door closed behind Stacy.

"Is she in there?" Chris asked as Stacy walked out of the women's locker room.

Startled by Chris' unexpected outburst, Stacy jumped. Grabbing her chest, she was relieved to see that it was just Chris. "What _are_ you doing?"

"Is she in there?" Chris repeated, ignoring Stacy's question.

Rolling her eyes, she asked, "Is who in there?"

"The new diva!" Chris practically shouted

"Unfortunately yes," Stacy replied.

"Great," Chris said to himself excitedly.

Stacy gave Chris a questioning look. "Are you _sure _that you wanna see her?"

"She's not for me. I'm pretty sure the misses wouldn't like that anyways."

"She's 'for' someone?"

"I'm gonna hook her up with Rob."

"Why?"

"'Cause I was giving him a hard time earlier about some girl he met last night. I kinda felt bad. So this is my way of making it up to him," Chris explained.

"Ok," Stacy replied, questioning Chris' judgment in her head. "But shouldn't Rob be the one stalking her instead? And shouldn't he be trying to get with someone _nice_? And what about the girl he met?"

"He's letting me hook him up. Nice, schmice. She's hot."

Stacy gave him a light punch in the arm. "You are such a guy."

"Thank you," he replied cockily.

"But what about that girl he met?"

"He's probably never gonna see her again, unless by some freak chance."

Stacy sighed and decided to go find Andrew.

"I think he's getting some food," Chris said to her retreating back.

She gave him a wave of her arm, signaling her appreciation for the hint.

Chris leaned against the wall and waited for the hopefully-soon-to-be Mrs. Monday Night.

"Hey Baby," Andrew Martin said, seeing his girlfriend walking over to him.

"Hey. Hey guys," she returned.

Stephanie and Paul greeted her as she sat down next to Andrew.

"What's wrong? You look a little pissed," Stephanie noticed.

Recalling her meeting with Kylie, Stacy made a disgusted face. "Who signed the new diva?"

"I dunno. But it wasn't me," Stephanie replied. "I haven't met her yet actually."

"I just did," Stacy informed the group.

"What happened?" Stephanie asked, sensing that it wasn't a pleasant confrontation.

"She's a bitch," Stacy answered simply.

Paul laughed. "What? Was she not intimidated by the great Stacy Keibler's legs?"

"She's just a bitch. She thinks she's better than every woman in this company, who she fondly referred to as whores. Stupid midget," Stacy muttered the last part.

Andrew laughed. "A lot of people are midgets compared to you, Babe." He emphasized his point by rubbing her thigh under the table.

"I don't like her," Stacy pouted.

"Doesn't sound like she'll be making too many friends," Paul interjected.

"She doesn't think we deserve to be her friends," Stacy spat. Kylie had really gotten under her skin.

"Don't let her get to you. I bet she's just scared, it being her first night," Stephanie assured her friend.

"Scared my ass. She's stuck up as hell. She makes Chris look modest." Stacy's eyes wondered around the room until they landed on Rob and a woman. "Who's she?"

The other three people looked towards the direction Stacy was pointing to.

"Oh, that's Ella," Stephanie answered. "She's the marketing consultant the company hired."

"Why's she with Rob?" Stacy inquired.

"It's a funny story," Stephanie told them. "Last night, after the pay-per-view, they got stuck in an elevator together. They didn't think they'd see each other ever again. But they did. And now they're having dinner."

Stacy laughed.

"It wasn't _that_ funny," Andrew told his girlfriend.

"No. It's just that I think Chris is trying to hook Rob up with the new diva because he was making fun of Rob about never seeing her again," she explained, pointing at Ella.

"Well, Chris never was the brightest bulb in the box," Paul commented.

Everyone else nodded in agreement.

"So, how about after the show we go out for a real date?" Rob asked hopefully.

"A real date? I dunno," she replied, a bit of nervousness in her voice.

"C'mon! You said no yesterday 'cause you had a meeting. But you're here at your meeting. And I'm probably gonna stay for as long as you…" Rob trailed off.

"So?" Ella retorted smiling.

"So… how about we leave together and go out?" Rob suggested.

"I'll probably have a lot of work. And I have a flight out tomorrow. And-"

"Excuses, excuses," Rob scolded jokingly. "Yes or no?"

"I'll give you an answer later," Ella offered.

Rob sighed. "At least it's not a 'no'."

Ella nodded at Rob's optimism. "Let's just have dinner for now."

"I'm really a nice guy," Rob told her, hoping to persuade her.

Ella simply smiled at his attempt.

"And a lot of women would kill to be asked out by me," Rob informed her.

"I'm sure there are."

"And not many of them get an offer like the one you got."

"I'll bet."

"And they would all say 'yes' if I asked," he said childishly.

"I'll give you an answer later."

Rob graciously accepted his defeat. "Fine. Have it your way. But just so you know, that offer may not last all night."

"Thank you for the warning. I'll give you an answer later," she grinned. "Well, it was a good dinner, but I need to go and start my research," Ella said, standing up.

"And how do you do that with a live show?" Rob questioned.

"Watch it," she answered picking up her paper plate and throwing it away. "I'll see you later."

"With an answer?"

"With an answer," she assured him, walking away.

Kylie gasped as someone began speaking to her when she walked out of the locker room.

"Hi. I'm Chris Irvine. You must be the new diva. What's your name?" Chris said in one breath.

Calming down, she replied, "Kylie Tompkins."

"Chris Irvine. Do you have a boyfriend?"

Kylie raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you forward?"

"Not for me. I'm happily married," Chris said, raising his left hand to show off his wedding band.

"That's a shame," she replied flirtatiously while eying him.

"Yeah. Anyways, do you?"

Looking him up and down, she answered, "No."

"Well, I have this great guy for you to meet."

"That's so sweet of you. Let me guess. He saw me and was too intimidated by my beauty to ask me out," she assumed arrogantly, inspecting her new manicure.

"Something like that," he said, waving his hand, dismissing the topic of why Chris was asking her out for Rob. "So what about it?"

"Alright," she agreed. She never went for blind dates, but this wasn't really a date. Besides, practically every wrestler she had met was cute.

"Come on," Chris exclaimed, pulling her by the arm to catering.

Now alone, Rob walked over to the table that Stephanie, Paul, Andrew, and Stacy were sitting at. "Hey guys."

"You sure looked cozy with her," Paul teased.

Rob laughed. "Yeah. If that's how you saw it."

"She's hot!" Andrew commented, which earned him a smack in the arm and glare from an unhappy Stacy. "But you know no one even compares to you in my eyes," he quickly said to his girlfriend.

Stacy crossed her long legs and pouted.

"I said you were hotter!" Andrew whined.

Stacy turned her head the other way.

"Come on, Baby."

Stacy stood up and walked out. Andrew followed, shouting various apologies.

Sweetly, Stephanie looked expectantly at Paul.

"I love you," he said to her.

"I know," she laughed as he kissed her on the cheek.

"You two are nauseating," Rob interrupted their moment, making a face and gagging noises.

"You're just jealous 'cause you can't be nauseating like us with Ella," Stephanie teased.

"Am not," Rob argued childishly.

"So did you ask her out?" Paul interjected.

"Yeah, but she said she'd give me an answer later," Rob replied.

"She's making you sweat it out," Stephanie assured her. "Don't worry, she'll say 'yes.'"

"How do you know?" Rob questioned.

"She did the same thing to Shane. And I'm sure many other guys," Stephanie answered.

"To Shane? Your brother?" Rob inquired, surprise evident in his voice.

"Yeah. We were neighbors when we were little. Kinda weird meeting again, but cool nonetheless," Stephanie explained.

"To Shane?" Paul repeated.

"Yeah. He asked her to go to his birthday party and she said she'd give him an answer later that week. It was the day before the party, and she hadn't said anything to Shane. He was so worried. But she finally called and said she was going. I swear, Shane almost peed his pants when found out," Stephanie reminisced.

"She and Shane were together?" Rob asked.

"No. They had crushes on each other, but they were never 'together' like you said. Besides, it's not like it matters. That was when me and her were about… 8-years-old I think," Stephanie laughed at the worried to relieved look on Rob's face.

"So, she and Shane don't have like… a history that I have to live up to?" Rob questioned.

"Well, unless you count teasing a history, no," Stephanie replied.

"A girl making _the_ RobVan Dam sweat. Don't think I've ever seen that," Paul teased.

"I dunno what it is with her," Rob admitted. "But it's like, she's all I've thought about since I met her."

"Which wasn't that long ago," Stephanie reminded him. "Don't rush into this."

"Yeah. Otherwise you'll scare her off," advised Paul.

"It's just like, I don't know what I'm doing around her," Rob said.

"You really like her, don't you?" Stephanie asked, knowing the answer already.

"Yeah," Rob responded breathlessly.

"What's the matter? You look scared to death," Paul noticed.

"I dunno. I mean, I've never felt like this, ya know?" Rob questioned. "It's like I'm powerless around her and I'm just exposed. And what if she doesn't like me?"

Paul glanced at Stephanie lovingly. "That's not a bad feeling. Trust me," Paul instructed him.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'll go talk to Ella," Stephanie suggested.

"No, don't do that. I mean. Would you? Wait, no. Don't do that. It'll look like I'm in 5th grade. No, go talk to her," Rob disputed with himself.

"Listen, either way, I'm gonna go talk to her," Stephanie said. "The only question is, do you want to hear about what she said, if I can tell you that is?"

"Yeah," he answer enthusiastically.

"Ok, I'll see you two later," Stephanie said standing up. Before leaving, she gave Paul a quick peck and then left the room.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Rob asked Paul.

"You've known her for less than 24 hours and she's got you whipped," Paul laughed.

Rob pouted. "I'm not whipped," he muttered as Paul continued to laugh at him.

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Ending Author's Note: K. Now that you've read… what do you do? Read then ______. Read then… REVIEW! So go and review now please! And thank you to all the people who have already reviewed. I'll love you forever!


	4. Chapter 4: Confessions

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Disclaimer: K… I don't own Rob and I have no money.

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Rating: I'll tell you when it changes.

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Author's Note: Wow, I've gotten farther than I expected with this story. Ok… here's the frth chapter that I slaved over. I hope you like it. Tell me what you think in the reviews, especially if you haven't been reading it. K. Here's the next chapter.

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Chapter 4: Confessions

"So… what do you think about Rob?" Stephanie questioned Ella, attempting to be as subtle as possible. She failed miserably.

"Well Miss Nosy… he's ok," replied Ella, knowing that wasn't what Stephanie wanted.

"Ella!"

"Ok, ok. He's ok," Ella laughed.

"Ella!" Stephanie shrieked again.

"I'm serious. I dunno. I haven't known him that long!" Ella reminded her friend warily. Suddenly Ella found her sparkling toes, which were revealed through her open-toed heels, more interesting.

"What's wrong?" Stephanie asked, her tone changing from prodding to concerned.

Ella snapped her head back up momentarily before allowing her gaze to return to her toes.

"What's wrong?" Stephanie repeated herself, moving from her chair to the couch next to Ella.

"I like him," Ella muttered quietly, keeping her eyes downward.

Stephanie became confused. "And that's a bad thing because…"

"Just because!" Ella snapped. "Sorry," she apologized immediately after the words escaped her mouth. "It's just, a lot happened since we moved."

"Well it was been about 16 years," Stephanie pointed out. "We're old!"

This earned a small smile from Ella. "Hey! I'm younger than you! I'm only 25," Ella teased.

"Well you'll be 26 like me soon. In what, a month and a half?"

"Yeah. July 19th. Then I'll be old like you. But you'll be 27 in September," Ella said in a singsong voice. Once again, her gaze fell to the floor.

"Come on. What's so terrible that it's got you _this_ worked up?"

Ella sighed. If she was going to talk to anyone about this, it might as well be Stephanie. Though it had been 16 years since they last saw each other, Ella still felt at ease with the other woman. "Well, you remember the reason we moved was 'cause my dad got a really great job in Boston?"

Stephanie nodded, signaling for Ella to continue.

"Well the job fell through. We had a house that we could only afford to pay off for another few months. And we couldn't go back because someone already bought our old house."

"Yeah. I remember them. Their kids were _such_ brats! But continue."

"So we put the house up for sale. Someone bought it. We moved into some dinky, trashy apartment. Then a few months after that, my mom left him… left us." At this point, Ella's eyes shimmered with tears. She dabbed her eyes with her fingers, stopping the drops of water from falling. 

She slowly continued. "I became depressed and started doing drugs after I finally accepted that my mom wasn't coming back. I remember that I kept telling myself for about… 4 years that she would come back. She just needed some space. But that never happened." Fresh pools of water were barely held back. 

"I even tried to commit suicide once. I slit my wrists when my dad was at work. He came back and found me, barely alive, and took me to the hospital." The tears were trying to escape their confinement. "It took a while for me to recover, but I did. I had to go to counseling for my depression. They gave me pills and I got over it. Took a while, but I got through it. I stopped the drugs, got my grades up in school, and even got a boyfriend. We went out for about 9 months until he dumped me. Afterwards, he started spreading rumors that I was some easy whore. I was tormented for the remainder of my junior year. Guys harassed me constantly. Then my dad and I moved back to Connecticut. We didn't live anywhere near you though. So my senior year was good. I got into a pretty good college. 

"Then I met this guy. I had dated, but it never led to anything serious. At least until I met this guy. I was 21. He was 29." Ella took a deep breath. "He beat me." Finally, her tears spilled, streaming down her rosy cheeks. "I put up with it for three and a half years."

Stephanie wrapped her arms around her friend, rocking her soothingly.

"He said it was all my fault. Everything that went wrong was always my fault," Ella sobbed into Stephanie's shoulder, dampening Stephanie's expensive designer top. Stephanie didn't care.

"Oh, Honey. You poor thing," Stephanie rubbed Ella's hair, trying to calm her down.

"He would constantly bring other women to the apartment we got after being together about a year. He always told me that I wasn't good enough for him and that I was lucky that he would have me." She stopped.

Instinctively, Stephanie knew that she wasn't telling her something. "What happened?"

Ella looked up at her with puffy eyes. "He started bringing the women home after about five or six months of us living together. He told them I was his sister and they'd sleep together in our bed. The first time he did it I stormed out of the apartment. I went back a few hours later, planning on dumping him. I started my little speech to break up with him. Then he hit me." Ella continued to talk but her words her undecipherable from her sobbing.

"Oh my God," Stephanie said to herself. She should have kept in touch with Ella. Maybe she could have helped, or even helped prevent it. Small things can make the biggest differences.

Her words slowly became understandable. "I don't know why I put up with it for so long. I guess I was so scared of him. I just, I couldn't believe how he changed. He used to be one of the sweetest guys and then he turned into such an asshole. But he kept hitting me and then he started raping me and threatening me. I just couldn't leave."

Stephanie exhaled. "It's not your fault Honey. No where near it."

"I should've been stronger. I should have hopped on a plane or something! But I didn't want him to hurt my family. I've seen his friends and I've seen him workout. That alone scares me!"

Stephanie hushed her. "You can't blame yourself for something that you can't control."

"I should've done something sooner though! He hit me for two years before I called the cops on him!" Ella shouted, standing up. "I should've done it the first time he hit me!"

Tears sliding down her cheeks, Stephanie pulled at her friend's arm, getting her to sit back down.

"He was arrested and he's in jail. I didn't bother learning the details. I wanted to forget everything about him as soon as I could. That was about a little over a year ago."

Stephanie sighed. "Rob's a good guy. He wouldn't hurt anyone."

"That's what I thought about… him," she said, refusing to speak his name. "But look how that turned out. I admit it; he's a nice guy. But that doesn't mean he won't change. I'd be ok with us being friends, but I don't know if I wanna take it any farther than that."

"So what about you two going out tonight?" Stephanie asked.

"I'm just gonna tell him I'm tired. The flight and the show were a lot or something like that."

"Ella, you can trust him."

"I don't need you telling me about who to trust!" Ella snapped. "I'm sorry if I had a traumatizing experience. You go and have an experience that scars you for life, then I'll talk to you about trust." With that, Ella turned and stormed out of the office.

"Damn it," Stephanie muttered to herself, following Ella. "Wait!" Stephanie called out.

Ella ignored her friend and went into the bathroom, soon followed by Stephanie.

Ella had sat down on the couch when Stephanie saw her. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "You're right. I have not idea what you went through and have no right to talk to you as though I do."

"I know I'm right. And I'm not saying that to sound arrogant anything. But it's true. I have spent so many hours with a therapist talking about this. I've talked to other friends that I went to college with. They all talk the same way. They have no idea how this really affects a person. You can't fathom how useless those therapists really are," Ella laughed through her tears.

Stephanie smiled and sat down next to Ella. "I'm just saying, if you wanna give a guy a chance, give the chance to Rob."

"I'll keep that in mind. But I'm still not ready for another relationship. He's a sweet guy as far as I know, but that's about all I know."

"I'll make you a deal. You go out with Rob, and me and Paul will go with you," Stephanie suggested. "Safety in numbers right?"

"Fine," Ella sighed.

Stephanie squealed and hugged her companion.

"Will you stop being such a baby about this?" Andrew complained.

"When you stop being such a pig I'll stop being such a baby!" Stacy shouted back through the door.

"Come _on_ Stace. Just unlock the door and we'll talk about this," Andrew attempted to negotiate.

"What's there to talk about? How you've been hitting on random girls for the past two weeks? How you talk about other girls to the guys with me right next to you? How you've been ignoring me lately? Is that what you want to talk about? 'Cause I don't know _why_ you'd wanna talk about it 'cause it's only gonna hurt your case even more!" Stacy yelled irately.

Andrew slid down the door and sat on the floor. He began throwing his head back in forth, banging it noisily on the door. Suddenly the door flew open and he landed on his back, his head coming in hard contact with the concrete floor. Scrambling to his feet, he saw Stacy turning a corner. "Stacy!" he called out running after her.

"That's him," Chris said, pointing to Rob, who was talking to Rob.

Kylie looked him over. He was the best looking wrestler she had met yet. "You have good taste," Kylie complimented Chris.

"Ok," Chris said. "I'll leave you to your work," he said, leaving Kylie.

Brushing a few strands of dyed blond hair out of her face, Kylie strutted over to the table Rob was sitting at. She pulled out a chair and sat down. "Hi," she said. "I'm Kylie." She then leaned forward and stretched out her hand, her top giving Rob a view of her cleavage.

"Rob," he replied, taking her hand. Noticing that she wasn't going to make any effort to talk to Paul, Rob introduced Paul as well.

"Hi," she said curtly, then focusing her attention back on Rob. "So I hear you're single."

"Divorced," he corrected her.

"Oh, that's too bad," she sympathized coyly. "You must be awfully lonely," she commented. Under the table, she slipped her foot out of her backless heel and stuck her foot between Rob's legs.

Rob immediately stood up feeling her foot resting against his crotch.

Paul looked at Rob oddly.

"I just remember that I… need to… go talk to Glen," Rob stuttered, leaving the table.

"He's not usually like that," Paul assured Kylie.

"Whatever," she said, standing up and leaving Paul at the table alone.

"Sorry," Trish apologized.

"You should be, you stupid bitch!" Kylie shouted.

"Excuse me. You should watch your mouth and where you're going," Trish replied coldly. "Who the hell are you anyways?"

"Kylie Tompkins. The WWE's newest diva," Kylie replied haughtily. "So you better watch where you're going next time. And by the way, that makeup looks absolutely atrocious and your clothes are _so _tacky," she sneered, walking away.

Trish glared daggers into the back of the woman. Suddenly she was bumped into again, this time by Stacy.

"Sorry Trish," she called back, walking past her petite friend briskly. Andrew soon followed. When he saw Trish, he stopped.

"Maybe you can help," Andrew said to the blonde.

"What'd you do now?" she questioned.

"I said some other chick was hot and Stacy got pissed."

"Aren't you smart" Trish teased.

"Listen, I don't know what's gotten into her lately. I mean I've said other girls looked good in front of her before, but she didn't care. She knew that I always thought she looked better."

"A girl can only take so much of her boyfriend gawking at other women," Trish pointed out. "Besides, no girl wants to hear her boyfriend talking about how good some other girl looks."

"She should have told me that then!" Andrew shouted in frustration. Women were a species of their own to Andrew.

"She probably didn't want to sound like the jealously paranoid girlfriend and have you get mad at her."

"Why would I get mad at her?"

"'Cause you're an irrational male," Trish responded cheekily.

"I am _not_ irrational."

Trish gave him a "puh-lease" look.

"Ok, so maybe I can be irrational sometimes. But if it bothered her, she should've said something."

"And you as her boyfriend should have noticed that something was wrong."

"How was I supposed to know something was wrong? I still act the same I did four months ago and so does she!"

"Maybe she thinks the relationship's not going anywhere."

"You women are so… difficult! First you act like nothing's wrong. Then you get mad at us when we don't notice anything's wrong when you act like there's nothing wrong!"

"You're just supposed to know these things, Drew."

Andrew sighed.

"Just let her cool off. When she wants to talk, she'll talk to you."

"K. Thanks Trish."

"No problem. But now, I need my venting."

"My ears are yours," he replied, leaning against the wall.

"I just ran into that new diva. What a bitch! She thinks she's God's gift to the WWE. Who the hell does she think she is telling me that my makeup is 'atrocious' and my clothes 'tacky'? Has she looked in the mirror lately? She looks like she dipped her face in orange paint."

"Stacy didn't like her either," Andrew said to Trish.

"If she acted half as rude to Stacy as she did to me, then that doesn't surprise me."

"I think you need to cool down before you hurt someone," Andrew grinned.

"Watch it or that someone will be you," she warned him with a smile.

"I'm so scared," Andrew laughed.

Trish glared playfully at him. "I'll show you scared," she threatened, balling up her fists.

Andrew began to run and Trish was right behind him.

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Ending Author's Note: K. There ya go. Now go and review! And thanks to all the people who already have!


	5. Chapter 5: Lesson In Pool

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Disclaimer: I don't own Rob. *sad face* I don't own any other characters either, except Ella.

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Rating: PG-13

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Author's Note: Ok… I was planning on updating Monday, but I didn't… obviously. But I did it now… almost a week later. But yeah. Sorry to those people who were waiting for the next chapter (if those people exist). But here it is. Chapter 5! Yay!

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Chapter 5: Lesson In Pool

"So, your answer is…" Rob trailed off.

Ella smiled at him sweetly before answering, "Ok. But it won't be a real date. I invited Stephanie and Paul because I haven't seen Stephanie in so long and I just wanted to spend some time with her and see if her fiancé measures up to my standards."

"That's fine," Rob agreed. "So I found this pool hall not too far away."

"Sounds great," Ella replied. "I need to finish watching the show, so I'll see you in a little bit."

"Ok," he said grinning cutely. "I'll see you later." He then turned around and walked to, Ella assumed, his locker room.

Ella turned around and walked the opposite direction back to an office that was set up for her. There was a television so that she could watch the show from the perspective of an at-home audience member. Then the next night at the Smackdown taping, she would be in the audience to get the different points of view.

Entering the office, she found a leggy woman sitting on the couch sobbing quietly. Awkwardly, she asked, "Is something wrong?"

The woman looked up startled. Standing up, she replied, "I'm sorry. I didn't think anyone was using this room." She began to hastily wipe at her running mascara.

"It's fine. Don't worry. I'm Ella Taylor."

"Stacy Keibler."

"What's wrong?" Ella questioned, closing the door.

Stacy flopped back down onto the couch. "I just got in a fight with my boyfriend."

Ella sat down next to the troubled diva.

"I mean, I know I'm just being paranoid and jealous, but you know, a girl can only take so much."

Ella's throat suddenly tightened, hoping silently that Stacy's story wasn't anything like her own. "What'd he do?"

"I mean, it seems like he's been ignoring me and paying more attention to other women when I'm _right_ there. And when he does acknowledge the fact that I'm there, he's always making comments about other women…" Stacy trailed off after finally taking a good look at Ella. It dawned on her that Ella was the person Andrew was talking about earlier. Stacy suddenly wished Ella wasn't so nice.

"What?" Ella prodded, sensing something else was wrong.

"Honestly, you kind of started our fight." Seeing the look of shock on Ella's face, Stacy quickly added, "But not _just_ you."

Relief swept over Ella.

"I mean, it's just been building up for a few weeks now, and tonight was just the breaking point."

"I'm sorry," Ella apologized sympathetically.

"It's really not your fault," Stacy assured the other woman. "It's his."

Ella smiled. "He's just a guy. Guys are… guys," she said, not sure how to put what guys are into words. "Only he can control what he does. You can't blame yourself for something you can't control," Ella quoted Stephanie.

Wiping her eyes one last time to ensure there was no out of place mascara, Stacy stood up and said, "You're absolutely right. If he can't control his… guyness… then I'll find someone who can. Thanks."

"No problem."

"I'll see you later maybe," Stacy said over her shoulder as she left Ella's office.

Ella sat on the couch and picked up the remote control from the coffee table on the side of the couch. She turned on the television, grabbed her clipboard, and watched the rest of the show.

"You were great out there," Kylie complimented her reflection. She was standing in front of the large mirror in the women's locker room.

"Talking to yourself, or your own reflection, is the first sign of insanity," Trish called out, entering the locker room, smirking.

Kylie let out an over-exaggerated sigh and turned to face Trish. "Just shut the fuck up and leave me alone. I didn't ask what the first fucking sign of insanity is," Kylie snapped.

"Sorry if I didn't want anyone to throw you into the loony bin," Trish replied sarcastically. "Though someone should," she added under her breath.

"Whatever. Just get the hell out."

"This is not _Kylie's_ locker room. This is the _women's_ locker room. Meaning it's for any woman."

"So why are you in here?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you look like a fucking guy! I mean, those boobs are so fake. You should've booked a plastic surgeon for you nose, not your chest."

Appalled by Kylie's comments, Trish grabbed her bag and stomped out of the locker room, leaving Kylie with a satisfied smile on her face… and the mirror all to herself.

"Yes, you are the best diva _ever_!" she told herself. "The best."

"Are you done throwing your little hissy fit?" Andrew asked, seeing his girlfriend approaching.

Stopping in front of him, Stacy kept her gaze away from his eyes. "Look Andrew, I know that you care about me. But this whole thing about commenting on other women, it's just really made me question how much you care about me. Or at least on what level."

"I don't get you mean Stace."

"I mean, you talk to me about other women like I'm one of the guys or just a friend. It's like, we don't act much like a couple anymore," Stacy explained.

"Of course we do," Andrew insisted.

"No, we don't," Stacy argued. "I mean, when was the last time just the two of us did something together?"

"Come on Stacy. It's not like we don't see each other."

"But it's not like you act like I'm your girlfriend either! I mean, you make it look like we're just friends, or even brother and sister! You don't hold my hand when we're just walking somewhere. You don't kiss me. You'll only do that in front of people we know."

"So I'm against public displays of affection. Is that so wrong?"

"Andrew! You make a little show of us being together on national television, but when we're just on the street, you won't even link arms with me!"

"Stacy, you're blowing this thing way out of proportion. I mean, so we don't link arms. So what?"

"So what? _So what_? SO WHAT? How can you stand there and listen to what I'm saying and just say, 'So what?' to me?" Stacy leaned against the wall and sighed. "I think we should see other people because you obviously need someone that I'm not."

"Stacy-"

"No. It's better this way. I can't control what you do, but I can control what _I_ do." Kissing him on the cheek, she turned and walked away.

Andrew began banging his head against the brick wall where Stacy was leaning just moments ago. "How could I have been so stupid?"

"Talking to the wall, are we?" Jay asked, coming up behind his friend.

Andrew turned to face his fellow Canadian. "She dumped me!"

"Who? Stacy?" Jay asked.

"No, the boogieman. He and I have been having a fling for the past month," Andrew retorted sarcastically.

Raising his eyebrows, Jay replied, "Dude, I didn't know your door swung that way. The boogieman? But hey, whatever bakes your cake."

By the look on Andrew's face, Jay could tell that his friend was not enjoying Jay's humor.

"What happened?"

"She started talking about what we don't do and stuff and it just blew up in my face!"

"What you don't do? Are you still a virgin?" Jay joked again. "Sorry," he said quickly after looking at Andrew's expression, his hands up in surrender. "Well, look at it this way, you can go and hook up with whoever you want. I mean _whoever_ you want."

"I'm not gay!" Andrew exclaimed. A few crewmembers looked warily at the wrestler. "Look what you did!"

"What _I_ did? You're the one who was shouting about gayness. Besides, you could be bi," Jay suggested.

Andrew glared at his "helpful" friend.

"Listen, just try to move on. There's no use on holding on to Stacy 'cause she's gone. So just find another girl. And you will find one. And if you can't, I'll buy you a nice little prostitute," Jay offered.

Andrew chuckled at Jay's last comment. "I think you need one more than me."

"Excuse me, but I happen to be married," Jay informed his friend, holding up his left hand and flaunting his wedding band.

"But that doesn't mean you get any on the road. Besides, girls are just naturally attracted to me. I don't need your two cent whores."

Jay looked hurt. "Do you really think that low of me? I would've bought you at least a three dollar whore."

Smiling, Andrew pushed himself away from the wall. "Thanks man."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not gonna get all mushy on me, are you?"

"No." There was a short silence.

"You really liked her, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but what can I do now? She's already made up her mind. And once she's done that, you can't really change it."

"You'll get over her eventually."

"Yeah… I just wish I didn't have to."

"Ok, that's enough corny stuff. Let's go back to the hotel."

"Alright," Andrew said, walking off to the locker room with Jay.

"Ready to go?" Stephanie asked, popping her head into Ella's office.

"Yeah, just let me finish packing my stuff," Ella replied, shoving a few papers into her suitcase.

"You're gonna go like that?" Stephanie questioned coyly.

Ella looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a black skirt with a white blouse. "Good point. But I didn't pack any other type of clothing. So unless you guys wanna stop by the store, yeah, I'm going like this."

"Well, aren't you lucky? I brought some extra clothes just in case someone had to spill or dump or somehow get something on me," Stephanie told her friend.

"Thank you," Ella said gratefully.

"They're not much, but they're better than that."

"That's fine."

"I'll go get them," Stephanie said, leaving the office.

A few minutes later, Stephanie returned holding a pair of jeans and a large black t-shirt. She tossed the items of clothing to her friend. "Here's a rubber band too. The shirt's Paul's, so it's huge. Just tie the back or something.

"Thank you," Ella said as Stephanie left the room to let Ella change. Quickly unzipping her skirt and pulling off her pantyhose, she slipped on the jeans. She unbuttoned her blouse and put on the shirt. It was bigger than it looked. She rolled the bottom of the shirt up then tied it in the back to make it shorter and tighter. The sleeves practically went down to her elbows, so she rolled the sleeves up as well. Finally satisfied she folded her clothes and managed to fit those into her briefcase as well. "Ready," she announced, coming out of the office.

"K. We have three cars to take care of: mine and Paul's, yours, and Rob's. So we're just all gonna follow Rob."

"Sounds good."

They reached the parking garage where Paul and Rob were already waiting.

"Paul," Stephanie started, leading her friend to her fiancé, "I want you to meet Ella Taylor."

"Nice to meet you," Paul said, shaking her hand.

"You too," Ella returned.

"So Rob, where's the pool hall?" Stephanie asked.

"Few blocks down. Just follow me," he instructed the small group.

Everyone climbed into their respective rental cars and took off, with Rob leading the short train of vehicles. The show having ended more or less an hour earlier, there was very little traffic because of the time of night. They reached the pool hall quickly and parked.

"We're here," Rob announced as everyone got out of their cars.

"Thank you Captain Obvious," Paul said sarcastically.

"Well, let's go inside," Ella suggested when they all just stood by their cars.

"Lead the way," Rob said.

"Your idea to come here," Ella pointed out.

"We'll go together," Rob said, offering his arm to her.

She looped her arm through his and the four walked into the somewhat crowded building.

"There's an open table," Stephanie pointed out. The group grabbed a couple sticks and walked over to the table.

A tall, but shorter than Rob, man walked over. Tattoos were visible on his arms. "How long you gonna be here?" he asked gruffly.

"Couple hours?" Rob asked the group. When they nodded he said to the man, "two hours."

"You can pay when you're done," the man informed them. He then went back towards his post near the entrance.

"He seems friendly," Ella said under her breath.

"Oh yeah. A real Mr. Rogers," Rob added.

"Well, let's play some pool," Paul said, grabbing the balls and forming them. "We playing teams?"

"Yeah," Stephanie answered. "Girls versus guys."

"They think they can beat us," Paul chuckled to Rob.

Stephanie raised an eyebrow at Paul's comment.

"Alright, we accept," Paul said. "We'll even let you ladies break."

"How sweet of you," Stephanie replied, her voice coated with sugar. She took on the sticks, covering the tip in blue, and leaned over on the table, aiming her shot. "But I must warn you," she started, hitting the white ball, "that I used to play pool when I went with my father on his business trips sometimes," she finished, standing back up to admire her work. She sank two of the striped balls. "The guys who taught me said I was a fast learner."

Paul and Rob stared incredulously at the green table.

Stephanie walked over to the other end of the table and aimed again. This time she only sank one striped ball.

Needless to say, the girls won… quickly.

"Well, I learned something tonight," Stephanie announced as they exited the pool hall.

"And what's that?" Paul grumbled at having lost seven fast games to the two girls. Ella had played well, but the girls won because of Stephanie.

"That you suck at pool," Stephanie teased.

"It's not my fault you never told me you were freakishly good at pool," Paul defended himself.

Stephanie giggled. "I know."

"You didn't do _too_ bad though," Ella said to Rob. Their arms were once again linked with one another's.

"Yeah. I did do better than Paul," Rob said thoughtfully.

Paul only grumbled more. "I had an off night, ok?"

"Whatever you say, Honey," Stephanie said getting into their rental.

"Well, since we're not staying at the same hotel, good night," Stephanie said to Rob and Ella.

"Yeah. Bye," Paul said grumpily.

Ella and Rob watched as Paul and Stephanie left for their hotel.

"So where are you staying?" Rob asked.

"I dunno the name of it. I only have the address."

"Well, where is it then?"

"On… 27th," Ella answered, pulling out a small piece of paper with the hotel's address.

"Oh, you're talking about Red Lion," Rob said.

"… Sure."

"I'm staying there too."

"Why aren't you staying at the same place as Steph and Paul?"

"They wanna spread us out so that we don't get together and burn down the hotel," Rob enlightened her.

"Oh. So that's what you normally do in your spare time? Burn down hotels?"

"Darn, I wasn't supposed to let you in on my secret."

Ella laughed. "Your secrets safe with me. For now."

"Well, we better get going."

"You lead the way 'cause I dunno how to get there."

"How were you going to get there before?"

"Drive around and hope that I was going in the right direction."

"Well then you can follow me."

"Thank you. You're like my knight in shining armor."

"I thought you said I was too short, pale, and ugly to be your knight."

"Things change."

Rob shrugged. "I'll take it."

Getting into their cars, the two drove to the hotel. Once their, Rob carried Ella's bags for her. They stopped briefly at the front desk to check in. Fortunately, Ella's company had made the reservations for her this time.

"Well, goodnight," Ella said, stopping at her room.

"This seems familiar."

"Doesn't it though?"

"Yeah."

After a short silence, Ella said, "Thank you for tonight. It was fun."

"Yeah."

"Night."

"Night."

Ella scanned her keycard and the door unlocked. She took her briefcase and small bag and disappeared into the room.

When the door closed, Rob turned to go back to the elevator and go to his own room.

~*~*~*~*~*~

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Author's Note: Ok. There it is. It actually turned out longer than I expected it to. I hope you liked it! Go review it now! And tell your friends to read this. I need all the reviews I can get. Ok. Enough from me. I'm gonna go now. Thank you!


	6. Chapter 6: Gossiping Wrestlers

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Disclaimer: I don't own or know anybody in this story.

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Author's Note: I'm really sorry that I haven't updated in forever! I was gone for a while on a trip. And then my computer was stupid and I lost everything I wrote. And I had this chapter written already. But then I forgot what I wrote in it so I don't know if this version is anything like the other one. And I had writer's block for a while. But again, I'm really sorry and thank you for being so patient with me. And also thank you for the reviews. Keep doing it!

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Chapter 6: Gossiping Wrestlers - June 17, 2003

"Welcome to _my_ show," Stephanie bragged to Ella as the two entered the arena. "It's gonna be better than yesterday's show."

"We'll see," Ella laughed.

"Can't you just humor me?" Stephanie sighed.

After pretending to contemplate the brunette's question, Ella replied, "No."

"I hope you know how lucky you are. You're a lot to put up with," Stephanie teased.

"You know you love me," Ella retorted with a giggle.

"I think Rob does too," Stephanie smiled. "Or at least likes you a lot."

Ella began walking with head line of vision directed at the floor.

"So what happened after we left?" Stephanie prodded, leading her friend down the halls.

"Well… we ended up staying at the same hotel. I invited him up to my room. We had a few drinks, and before we knew it, we were having sex on the floor 'cause we fell off the couch."

"LIAR!" Stephanie accused her fellow brunette.

Ella laughed.

"You would never do that! Especially after what you told me yesterday," Stephanie said in a more serious tone.

"You're right. We did stay at the same hotel though. And he walked me to my room. And that's where it ended."

"You didn't kiss him?" Stephanie said in a reprimanding tone.

"It wasn't even a real date."

"So?" Stephanie opened the door that had a sign reading "General Manager - Stephanie McMahon."

"So what?"

"It doesn't matter if it wasn't a real date," Stephanie argued.

"Well it doesn't make a difference now."

"You gonna go out with him again?"

"If he asks…" Ella trailed off.

Stephanie began jumping around, squealing in excitement.

"I think you're more excited than I am. And he hasn't even asked me out yet."

"But he will," Stephanie told her friend confidently. "I saw you two last night. Admit it. You like him!"

"You sound like a 12-year-old."

"Answer the question."

"Fine," Ella sighed. "I like him. Happy?"

"Very. You're gonna marry Rob! If you get engaged soon enough, we could have a double wedding in October. And it's only June, so that gives you about four months-" Stephanie rambled.

"Aren't you getting a _little_ ahead of yourself?" Ella interrupted.

"What do you mean?"

"You're talking about us getting _married_ when we haven't even had a first date…"

"But I know you will!" Stephanie exclaimed.

Ella sighed, giving up on convincing Stephanie to slow her plans down.

"And we'll get married in a church in Greenwich. And we can wear matching wedding dresses!" Stephanie continued to rant.

"Steph."

"Yeah?"

"We can plan later."

"So you admit that you and Rob will get married.

Rolling her eyes, Ella nodded for Stephanie's sake.

"HA! I knew it!"

"Ok. Are you done gloating now?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Good. Show me where I can get food," Ella requested.

"Yes, Ma'am," Stephanie saluted, exiting the office with Ella.

Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Charlie Haas, and Shelton Benjamin piled food onto their plates, creating what looked like a cluster of mountains. Scanning the room for a few seconds they found a table with enough empty seats to accommodate all four wrestlers. They walked over.

"Mind if we take a seat?" Shelton asked.

Looking up from her salad, Torrie replied, "Of course not!"

The guys all sat down and began eating.

"Are you guys going to eat _all_ that?" she questioned.

"Yeah…" Brock answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Torrie shrugged. "So… what are you guys scheduled for tonight?"

"Well, I'm finally getting back in the ring!" Kurt exclaimed victoriously before taking another bite of his sandwich.

"With us," Charlie added. "We talk to him, call his a loser and stuff like that."

"Then I kick his ass in a match," Kurt finished for Charlie.

"But then I get into the ring with you afterwards," Shelton reminded Kurt.

"But then _I_ get into the ring and me and Kurt have a little chit-chat," Brock said, taking a drink of his water. "Then I have the 'unfinished business' title match with Paul," he said, referring to Paul Wight, who's onscreen persona was Big Show.

"And then we come and kick Brock's ass for kicking ours," Shelton concluded.

"Exciting," Torrie commented.

"What about you Miss Wilson?" Charlie asked flirtatiously.

Before responding, Torrie flashed her engagement ring at Charlie. "I'm accompanying Monty out to the ring and I get to get in a little cat fight with Nidia."

"So you and Mr. Ass are together now?" Kurt asked suggestively.

"Professionally," Torrie specified.

"Sure…" Kurt replied with a disbelieving tone.

Torrie smacked him on the arm playfully. "Kurt!"

"I'm just joking," he assured her.

"I know," Torrie smiled.

Just then Mark Callaway joined the group. "Hey guys."

The others greeted the veteran.

"Did any of you guys hear anything about someone coming to evaluate the show?" Torrie inquired.

"No, where'd you hear that?" Shelton asked as three of the four others shook their heads negative.

"I heard the crew whispering about it since I got here," she answered.

"There's a marketing consultant here. She's supposed to watch the show and find a way to make it more… well… marketable. And from what Glen tells me, she and Rob have a little thing going on," Mark filled in his colleagues.

"Are you serious? Rob likes her? How long has he known her?" Torrie gossiped.

"Glen said they met two days ago, but they went out with JP and Steph last night," Mark informed her.

"I'm gonna have to talk to Stephanie," Torrie planned.

"Well here's your chance, Darling. They just walked in," Mark nodded towards the doorway through which Stephanie and Ella had just entered.

"Is that her?" Torrie asked.

Mark verified her assumption.

"I'll see you guys later," she said standing up and heading towards Stephanie. "Hey Steph."

"Hi Torrie," Stephanie returned with a smile. "This is Ella Taylor. Ella this is Torrie Wilson."

"It's nice to meet you," Ella said, extending her hand.

"You too!" Torrie exclaimed, accepting Ella's handshake.

After a few minutes, the three girls grabbed a smaller table.

"So…" Torrie started, "from what I hear, you and Rob are-"

"Gonna get married!" Stephanie finished for Torrie.

"You're getting married and you only met him Sunday?" Torrie questioned.

"No. We're not getting married. Stephanie's just delusional. And how'd you know I met Rob Sunday?" Ella inquired with a hint of suspicion.

"Please. Nothing stays quiet in this business," Torrie answered, grinning.

"That's kinda funny," Ella mused.

"What do you mean?" Stephanie asked.

"Well, there's obviously a lot of gossip circulating if nothing can stay a secret, and most of this company has male employees, which proves that men gossip just as much as women," Ella explained.

Stephanie began laughing as she pictured guys like Mark, Glen, Kevin, Paul, and JP standing in the locker room giggling and gossiping. "Yeah, that is funny."

"So then you and Rob are together?" Torrie questioned.

"No," Ella replied as Stephanie began nodding her head furiously. "No!" Ella repeated, nudging Stephanie in the side.

"Ow!" Stephanie cried out.

"I think you two would be cute together," Torrie encouraged Ella.

"Well… thanks… I guess," Ella replied. "So how many other divas are on SmackDown!?"

"About three of us. Most of them are on Raw," Torrie answered.

"Save the work for later. I think you should meet some of the guys," Stephanie said, drawing Ella out of her thoughts.

Agreeing, Ella stood up as Stephanie led her to different tables, introducing her as the woman Rob was going to marry.

"Why do you want me and Rob to get together so bad?" Ella asked her friend once they returned to the office.

Sighing, Stephanie sat at her desk. "It's just that you deserve to be happy. Rob deserves to be happy. And I think you two should be happy together."

"What makes you think that we'd be that happy together?"

"I saw the way he was looking at you last night. He really likes you. And you said earlier that you liked him too."

"It's not that easy Steph."

"I'm sure it's not. But if you don't ever try to move on, you won't. And I think that you have spent too much time hurting over some jackass who treats women like shit."

"I'm just scared it's gonna happen again," Ella confessed.

"Rob wouldn't do that. I've told you that. Just tell him what happened and he'll understand."

"No. Please don't tell people. I don't want anyone else knowing," Ella instructed her friend.

"Why won't you tell Rob?"

"I just don't want everyone feeling sorry for me that my boyfriend beat me up. They'll act all weird around me," Ella responded. "And I can't get over it if I'm constantly reminded of it by people who pity me."

"They won't pity you. I think that if you and Rob start dating, you should tell him."

"No," Ella insisted. "And you're not going to tell anyone either."

"Fine," Stephanie sighed.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. What am I here for?"

"To be my best friend," Ella laughed, pinching Stephanie's cheeks.

"How sweet," Stephanie muttered sarcastically.

"Hello?"

"Ella?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Yes… Rob?"

"Yeah."

"Hi. How'd you get my cell phone number?" Ella questioned with a hint of surprise in her voice.

"Stephanie gave it to me yesterday."

"Of course she did. So did you need something?"

"Umm… well, Stephanie told me that you would be flying to Connecticut tomorrow."

"Yeah. I'll be at the office until Sunday and then it's to on Monday New York for Raw," Ella explained.

"I was wondering if you'd be interested in joining me for lunch tomorrow," Rob proposed.

"How's that going to work?" Ella questioned.

"We have a house show in Hartford in on Saturday and I'm flying out there tonight. And Stephanie said you lived in Stamford."

"Yeah, right near the WWE's headquarters coincidentally."

"So I was thinking that we could meet in New Haven for lunch or something," Rob suggested hopefully.

"Are you asking me out on a date?" Ella asked in a teasing tone.

"And if I am?" Rob retorted, suddenly feeling like a teenager again.

"I'll meet you there."

"Great," Rob said with a sigh of relief. "So do you know where you want to go since you know the area better than I probably do?"

"What do you want to eat?"

"How about… Italian?"

"Ok. Umm… there's a place called 'Mario the Baker.' I haven't actually been there to eat, but everyone says it's really good. And it looks nice."

"Ok. Where is it?"

"It's on 864 High Ridge Road."

"Ok. I'll meet you there around 11:30?"

"That sounds great. I'll see you there."

"Ok. Bye."

"Bye," Ella said, closing her phone.

"Who was that?" Stephanie asked, re-entering the office.

"Rob."

"And?" Stephanie prodded.

"He asked me to go to lunch with him tomorrow. He heard that I would be in Stamford from you."

"I was just trying to help," Stephanie defended herself. "And considering that he _did_ call, I say you owe me a bit of gratitude."

Smiling, Ella said, "Thank you for being the nosy, pushy person you are. Do you think that Rob and I could have some sort of relationship."

"No, I just want you to waste your time with Rob instead of looking for you perfect guy," Stephanie replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"Hey, you never know. Especially with you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Umm… personal stuff aside, it's business talk time. Or at least time to arrange business talk time," Ella said.

"Well, I'm going home tomorrow. So why don't you stop by around dinner and we can talk business there. My mom and Shane should be there, so we can all talk about where we want the company to go. Then we can have dinner."

"Alright. Same house?"

"Same house."

"What time should I be over?"

"Around 4:00?"

"Alright. I'll see you then."

"If you're going to lunch with Rob, when are you leaving?"

"My flight's tonight after the show ends."

"So you get to sleep on a plane?"

"Yeah."

"Fun," Stephanie mumbled.

"When's yours?"

"Tomorrow morning. Around 6."

"I'd rather sleep on the plane."

"Why's that?"

"'Cause you have to get out of a bed to get on a plane. I don't have the bed to miss."

After a few seconds, Stephanie nodded. "True. But that's not the point. You are going on a _date_ with Rob! You'll be married in no time."

"Whatever you say…"

~*~*~*~*~*~

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Ending Author's Note: Ok. There it is. And I hoped you liked it. It took me a while to get through this chapter. And I think it's the one I like the least so far. So hopefully I'll make the rest a lot better. Please review! And thank you to all the people who already have!


	7. Chapter 7: Cute Date

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Disclaimer:I don't own or know anybody in this story.

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Author's Note: I said it in the last chapter, but I'm sorry that it's taking me longer and longer to update. But thank you for being patient. And thank you to everyone who has reviewed. Please continue to do so. Or if that doesn't apply to you, start to do so, please. So here's the next chapter!

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Chapter 7: Cute Date - June 18, 2003

"Hey," Rob greeted, spotting Ella making her way towards the table over his menu.

"Hi," she returned, taking her seat across from him.

"How was your flight?" he asked.

"Painful," she replied, rolling her neck side to side. "It left around 11:30 last night and I had to sleep on the plane."

"What time did you get in?"

"Around quarter to 7," she replied picking up the menu that was waiting in front of her. "So what do you think of the place?"

"It's nice," he said, glancing around the room. "Good choice."

"Thank you. Stephanie actually told me about this place."

"We'll have to thank her for sharing. But anyways, tell me a little about you. I just realized we don't actually know each other that well," he grinned.

"Well, I was born in and lived in Greenwich until I was 11. Then we moved to Boston. After a few years there, we moved back to Connecticut. I went to Berkeley College in Stamford after I graduated. And now I'm here," she said, cutting out chunks of her story.

"So you kept in touch with Stephanie?"

"No. Actually when I moved to Stamford, I didn't really think about whether or not Stephanie still lived there, with school and everything," she partially lied.

"So are you an only child?"

"Yeah. What about you? Tell me about yourself."

"I was born in Michigan. I've always loved wrestling. After high school I trained with a guy that my friend knew. Then I made my pro debut when I was 20. I made my ECW debut when I was 26 and my WWE debut when I was 28."

"And how old are you now?"

"30. And you?"

"The two things you never ask a women are her age and her weight."

"The first only applies to more… mature women."

"Are you calling me immature?"

"In the best, non-insulting way possible."

"I'm 25. 26 in about a month," she laughed.

"Really? When's your birthday?"

"July 19th."

"Almost exactly a month."

Ella nodded.

"Hello," a waiter said, smiling at Ella. "I am Brian. I'll be your waiter this afternoon. Would you like to start off with a drink?"

"Water's fine," Ella replied.

"Same here."

"Then do you know what you'd like to order?"

"Can we have a few more minutes?" Rob requested, noticing Ella frantically scanning the menu to make a choice.

"Of course," he obliged, walking over to another table.

"So…" Rob trailed off.

Ella glanced up at him from her menu. "So."

Rob tapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds.

"Is something wrong?" she questioned, setting her menu down on the table.

"Wrong? No. Nothing's wrong," he replied.

"Well you seem a little nervous."

"It's just, I got divorced recently. So it's kind of weird for me to be out on a date."

Ella laughed.

"Don't laugh at me!" Rob grinned.

"No, no, no. I think it's cute."

"Oh. Well in that case…"

"So how long ago was your divorce?"

"It was finalized about 9 months ago."

"What happened?" Ella inquired sympathetically. "If you don't mind me asking," she added quickly.

"I don't mind. We had been married for about 4 years. And the last year and a half was basically hell. ECW went out of business so I was home for a while. Then I joined the WWE and I was gone again. And she got used to me staying at home really quickly. So I would be gone for long periods of time and when I was home, we never did anything because she was always mad at me for one thing or another. And when I was on the road, I'd try calling her, but then it'd always end up in an argument about how I'm never home. I married her around the time I joined ECW, so she knew that I would be gone, and she still wanted to marry me. But then I don't know. I think she was used to having a normal life for the short amount of time we had one. And then when I started leaving again, she couldn't deal with it."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I realized that I spent more time with a locker room of guys than with her. And I was probably a lot closer to them than I was with her. You know? I traveled with them, trained with them, wrestled with them. I mean, if she was second to a bunch of guys, I'm really not that sad about letting her go."

Ella smiled. "So you were a lot… 'closer' to a bunch of guys than your wife? How close?" she asked suggestively.

"Not _that_ close. That's the one form of closeness where she had no competition with the locker room," Rob assured Ella.

"That's comforting to hear. But don't you think that with the time you spend away from home, that whoever you're with is always going to come second to a locker room of guys until you quit wrestling?" Ella pointed out.

"No," Rob replied almost immediately. "If we were meant to be, then nothing could come between us. She's be the most important person to me, no matter how much time I spend with a bunch of friends."

Ella nodded. "Point taken."

Just then, Brian returned and the couple gave him their orders.

"So, have you had any ex-husbands?" he joked.

"No," she replied, smiling.

"What about ex-boyfriends?"

"Nothing to tell," she retorted, smirking to hide her guilty look for not telling him the truth.

"Come on. There has to be _something_," he insisted. "Like, how long was your last relationship? Why'd you break up? How long ago was it?"

Ella hesitated before answering. "My last relationship lasted a few years. And we broke up because he cheated on me. And that was about 7 months ago."

"What an ass," Rob commented.

"Yeah. But he's gone now. So everything's fine."

"That's good."

"So tell me about your storylines," Ella requested. "I guess I should know a little more about those before I go changing things."

As Rob proceeded to explain what was happening with all their characters, their food arrived. Rob continued explaining as they began to eat.

"Sounds like a soap opera," Ella laughed, taking another bite of her food.

"Basically is except with more fights, extra-buff guys, and supermodel women," Rob agreed.

"So have you been in any of those romantic angles?"

"No. I think they tried to keep me out of it because I was married. And then once I got divorced, they had enough young and single guys to do the romantic angles. I think a couple of the married guys are doing angles, but not many. Kurt did a while back, but it wasn't serious. And Dwayne did too, but it lasted about a week or two."

"Well that's nice of the writers."

"I think it's because they don't want to be held responsible for any couples who end up going to counseling, but that's just my opinion."

Ella smiled.

"You have a beautiful smile," he said without thinking.

Blushing, she replied, "Thank you. Yours isn't too bad either."

"Oh stop it," laughed Rob. After a few seconds he asked, "Why'd you stop?"

"I just didn't think that I should continue to inflate your already oversized ego," she teased.

"How kind of you," he said sarcastically, flashing her a half grin.

"Well, I'm full," she told him, setting down her fork and leaning back in her chair.

"Me too," Rob said, swallowing his last bite.

"So now what?"

"So now, I pay, and we leave," Rob answered, as the waiter handed Rob the check.

"I can pay for my half," Ella insisted.

"It's a date and I'm paying," Rob countered. "It's not like I can't afford it." Rob placed his credit card inside the small black folder, waiting for the waiter to take it. A few minutes later, he returned with the receipt and Rob's credit card.

"Have a nice day," Brian said before leaving to tend to other customers.

"So, I better get back to the arena," Rob began, walking Ella out to the parking lot.

"Yeah. And I'm supposed to be at Stephanie's in a couple hours."

"This was fun."

"Yeah," Ella smiled.

"Yeah," Rob breathed, leaning closer to Ella, closing the distance between the two.

Before their lips could meet, a car alarm went off, causing Ella to jump back in surprise.

Looking around, Ella noticed that a guy only a few spaces down had set off his own alarm. Sighing, she said, "We should do it again."

"What? Have lunch or almost kiss."

Ella blushed. "Both, but drop the 'almost.'"

Grinning in agreement, Rob said goodbye to Ella and made his way to his rental.

"Hey!" Stephanie cried out, opening the front door wider, allowing Ella to enter.

"Hey. I can't wait to see your mom again!"

"Well good," Linda laughed.

"Hi Linda!" Ella exclaimed, hugging the older woman.

"Hello Sweetheart. It's good to see you again. You've definitely grown."

"Well, it _has_ been about 14 years," Ella grinned.

"Where's my hug?" Shane whined, joining the trio of women.

"It must have gotten lost in the mail," Ella teased, making her way towards him.

"Ha ha," Shane replied sarcastically, pulling the smaller woman into his arms.

"It's good to see you too," Ella said with a tone of seriousness.

"Yeah. It is, isn't it?" Shane bragged arrogantly with a smile.

Ella gave Shane a small smack on the arm once he released her.

"You know I'm kidding," Shane said in his defense, taking a step back as a precaution.

"I know. Where's your wife?" Ella inquired.

"Damn you have a big mouth, Steph," Shane joked.

"Shut up. We had catch up time, and we talked about you in that period of time. Besides, if I hadn't told her, she would've gone on with her plan to seduce you," Stephanie said acutely.

"Stephanie!" Ella exclaimed. "You weren't supposed to tell him that!"

Shane's eyes widened after hearing Ella's comments.

Stephanie noticed and began giggling, unable to contain them any longer.

Realizing why Stephanie was laughing, Shane's look of shock turned to one of embarrassment and annoyance. "Very funny."

"You're still as gullible as ever," Ella said, pinching Shane's face.

Childishly, Shane stuck his tongue out at her.

"She's right Shane," Linda confirmed with a smile.

"Oh, so now you're all going to gang up on me," Shane pouted, crossing his arms and separating himself from the three women.

"This wasn't as bad as the time that you thought my nonexistent older brother was going to beat you up because you ruined my sand castle," Ella reminded him.

"Hey, I had just met you. How was I supposed to know that you were making up your brother?" Shane retorted.

"Or the time that I told you that Mom and Dad were going to sell you to the circus," Stephanie added.

"I was 7! And Dad was in on it with you! He even brought out this big box and told me that he was going to mail me to the circus as soon as he got his money." Shane protested.

Linda was merely watching the antics as the two girls kept bringing up embarrassing Shane moments.

"Can we eat now?" Shane interrupted his own bashing.

"I supposed," Linda grinned and the four people made their way to the dining room.

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Ending Author's Note: Ok… I'm really sorry that this took so long to post like I said at the top. But thank you for staying with the story. And I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update with school starting in a few weeks. This was a really short summer too, or at least for me. But anyways, back to me talking about the story. Thank you for reading it and please review this chapter. Or the whole story if you haven't review at all yet! Again, thank you! Kiss, kiss!


	8. Chapter 8: Wedding Proposals

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Disclaimer: Ok… I'm not putting this anymore because it's fairly obvious that I only own Ella. And that I'm unfortunately making no money from this.

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Author's Note: I'm back! Well… I was never really gone… Well I kinda was… but I wasn't… Well, I went on vacation a few months ago when it was still summer. But I'm sorry it's taken so long! I went on my trip and then we got a new computer and everything got deleted and all this stuff! And then school started and I've been swamped so I'm writing this early in the morning. But you know how author's always talk about how early in the morning or late at night… whichever… it's 2:30 in the morning right now and I'm rambling just like usual… hmm… Interesting. But ok… that's enough from me. Thank you for reading this if you bothered to. Sorry it took so long, but I hope you like this chapter!

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Chapter 8: Wedding Proposals

"Dinner was _wonderful_," Ella complimented Linda as the four made their way into the living room.

"I'll tell Trevor that. I'm sure he'll appreciate the compliment," Linda smiled as she sat down on an armchair.

"Well," Stephanie started, "should we do business now or later?"

"Let's do it now. You know, just get it out of the way," Ella suggested.

Everyone agreed and Ella pulled out a few different file folders from her briefcase.

"Ok," she started, pulling out a paper from the thinnest folder…

"Well we can talk about this more at another times since you've given us quite a bit to do already," Linda said, ending the business part of the night. "Now, Stephanie tells me that she'd like you to be the maid of honor at her wedding."

Ella smiled warmly at Stephanie. "I'd be honored to."

Squealing, Stephanie hugged Ella. "You're going to look so beautiful I've already picked out the dress, we just have to get you fitted and all that!"

"Great," Shane sighed, "wedding talk. Like I didn't go through this enough with my own wedding."

Rolling her eyes, Stephanie said, "No one's _making _you stay."

"So now you're kicking me out. I see how it is. You just don't love your wonderful older brother anymore," Shane said melodramatically.

"Pretty much," Stephanie nodded.

"Fine. I know when I'm not wanted," he said as though he were suspicious of them.

Stephanie waved as her brother left the room. "Ok, so anyways, the dress is a pale pink color and that should go really well with your hair. And I was thinking we could get you a simple diamond necklace or a bracelet or something like that. Just something really simple and elegant."

"Stephanie," Ella interrupted, laughing. "Breathe."

Stephanie took a few deep breaths. Then a look of realization dawned on her face. "Wait, what am I talking about?"

Linda and Ella looked confused at Stephanie's outburst.

"You're gonna get married _with_ me!" Stephanie explained.

Ella rolled her eyes. "Here we go again."

"Again?" Linda questioned. "And what are you talking about Stephanie? Ella's not even seeing anyone right now," Linda recalled from their dinner conversation. Stephanie had oddly not mentioned Rob at that moment.

"Ella and Rob are gonna get married and she and I are gonna have a double wedding! Like how they were going to do it on _Passions_!" Stephanie elaborated, referring to her favorite soap opera. "Except that she's not going to be in love with my husband. Or vice versa," she quickly added.

"I didn't think you were into soaps, Steph," Ella commented, her eyebrows raised slightly.

"Where do you think I get all of my genius storylines?" Stephanie remarked.

Ella nodded, suddenly seeing the similarity between the storylines of a soap opera and those of Smackdown! and Raw.

"Stephanie," Linda began, "for Ella and Rob to get married, one of them would have to propose."

"Minor detail," Stephanie dismissed the loophole. "Besides, Hunter didn't propose when he kidnapped, drugged, and married me," Stephanie reminded her mother.

"Yes, and Rob is exactly like Hunter," Linda retorted sarcastically.

"Or it could be Ella that's like Hunter," Stephanie pointed out.

"I'm only sitting right next to you," Ella spoke up, grinning.

"Right," Stephanie said sheepishly. "But you never know…"

Ella rolled her eyes. "I promise I won't be drugging anyone in the near lifetime. Besides, Hunter's not even a real person."

"There could be a Hunter-like person out there somewhere," Stephanie argued.

Ella sighed and leaned back on the couch. 

Linda smiled at the two other women. "So you're only going to the tapings?" Linda questioned, changing the topic.

"Yeah. I figure that's where I should start since once you have those two shows stable, you should be able to do the non-televised shows fine," Ella answered, happy that they were speaking about something other than how she would have to drug a guy to get him to marry her.

"Have you met a lot of the wrestlers?" Linda inquired.

"I met a few," Ella replied. "I met Paul. He seems nice enough."

"He's perfect!" Stephanie began gushing. "He's sweet. And he's smart. And he's funny! A lot of people think he's serious all the time because of the way he plays Hunter, but he's nothing like Hunter."

Ella smiled at her friend, happy that she had found someone so perfect for herself. "So I take it you like him."

"Just a little," Stephanie laughed.

"How'd he propose?" Ella asked.

Stephanie bit her lip, grinning at the memory. "It was Valentine's Day. I was actually sick. So I was home and stuck in bed. And I hear this tapping at my window in the middle of the afternoon. So I got out on the terrace, and he's outside. And he starts doing this 'Romeo and Juliet' type monologue. It was the cutest thing though 'cause he had to say it really slow so that he wouldn't mess up on the words. But anyways, so he already had the ladder and he climbs up to the balcony, and he proposed there."

"That is so cute," Ella cooed.

"Actually, after he gave me the ring, he slipped off the ladder because it was so icy. Luckily there was a _lot_ of snow. He had a bruised butt and couldn't sit down for a while, but other than that, he was alright," Stephanie giggled.

"He had to stand up during dinner that night," Linda recalled. "Vince found it very amusing."

"Of course Vince found it amusing. What father wouldn't want to see their daughter's fiancé in pain?" Ella agreed.

The other two nodded in concurrence.

"So when do I get to meet Mrs. Shane McMahon? I need to meet my competition if I'm going to seduce him," Ella joked.

"I don't know. She's on some business trip," Stephanie informed her friend.

"Well, what's she like?"

Stephanie looked at Linda. "You wanna take this one, Mom?"

"No."

Stephanie sighed. "Where's Dad when you need him? He's always frank."

"Well, you do take after your father…"

"Is she that bad?" Ella interrupted.

"Well, she's very… un-McMahon," Stephanie said thoughtfully.

"She's a whiny little brat," Linda translated.

"That sounds _very_ McMahon to me," Ella teased. "Stephanie McMahon-ly in particular."

"Funny," Stephanie retorted sarcastically.

Ella simply scrunched her nose and gave Stephanie a smile.

"But she surpasses the seven-year-old me," Stephanie said, referring to her most spoiled years.

"She's _that _ bad?" Ella questioned disbelievingly.

Stephanie nodded, her hair bouncing up and down.

Ella looked to Linda for verification. She was nodding as well. "Well, guess I have some easy competition."

"Now Ella, what would Rob think if he heard you speaking that way?" Stephanie reprimanded mockingly.

"I'm just joking," Ella rolled her eyes. "And what business is it of Rob's? We're not dating or anything."

"Yet," Stephanie insisted.

Ella's shoulders slumped. "Are we back to this _again_?" she questioned exasperatedly.

"Yes, we are. I mean you two did go on a date today," Stephanie reminded her.

"Yes, we did," Ella agreed.

"And did you two _kiss_?" Stephanie inquired, stretching out the word "kiss" and making faces at Ella.

"No," Ella replied shortly.

Stephanie's faces stopped and she leaned back, looking at Ella. "What do you mean, 'no'?" Stephanie demanded.

"I mean no. We. Did. Not. Kiss," Ella elaborated.

"But how are you gonna get married if you two haven't even kissed yet?" Stephanie questioned.

"Your problem, not mine," Ella retorted.

"Of course it's your problem, you're the one marrying him!"

"We are _not_ getting married," Ella insisted.

"You two would be cute together," Linda interjected.

Ella shot her an incredulous look and her mouth dropped.

"Thank you, Mom," Stephanie smirked. "I win!"

"No, because Rob and I are not getting married!" Ella reiterated.

"Yes, you are," Stephanie persisted. "I know you will. You might not think that you're going to now, but you will. Just you wait," Stephanie semi-threatened.

"Do you have anything for headaches?" Ella asked, rubbing her temples.

"I can guess where that one came from," Linda laughed, giving Stephanie a pointed look.

"You're probably just stressed over the wedding," Stephanie grinned sheepishly.

"Why would Ella be stressed over your wedding?" Shane inquired, walking into the room as Linda walked out.

"She's not stressed over _my_ wedding. She's stressed over-"

"Don't. Say. Another. Word," Ella cut off Stephanie.

Stephanie began pointing wildly at Ella and mouthing the word "wedding" to Shane.

Ella nudged Stephanie in the side.

"What?" Stephanie cried out. "I wasn't saying anything!"

"Since when are you getting married? I thought you weren't even dating anyone!" Shane 

"I'm not," Ella assured him, shaking her head at Stephanie. "You're sister's just crazy."

"Oh, I could've told you that a _long_ time ago.

Stephanie pouted at Shane's comment. "If I am crazy, it runs in the family.

Shane shrugged. "Probably."

"You'd have to be crazy to be part of this family," Ella interjected, laughing.

"You think you're so funny, don't you?" Shane retorted childishly.

"Not _so_ funny. But funny," Ella replied.

"Well, you're almost like family so you're just as crazy," Shane stated.

"I didn't ask to be like family," Ella pointed out.

"It's not by choice," Stephanie informed her.

"Why does that not surprise me?" Ella mused.

"Because we're McMahons, damn it. And we get what we want," Stephanie joked.

"Except for Billy Hughes," Ella reminded Stephanie of a former crush.

"He liked me! He was just too shy to admit it!" Stephanie cried out with mock indignation.

"You just keep thinking that," Ella smiled.

"Wasn't that the kid who's lunch money I used to take?" Shane questioned.

Stephanie frowned at the memories of Shane beating up the object of her affection. "Yeah. You were so mean!"

"I only did it because you liked him. Since I beat him up, he would never like you," Shane explained.

"How anyone is able to tolerate you now in an actual marriage is beyond me," Ella teased.

"Again with the funniness," Shane commented dryly.

"Well, I can understand where she's coming from. But then again, looking at what you married," Stephanie trailed off.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shane demanded to know.

Stephanie's eyes widened. "What's what supposed to mean?" she asked coyly.

Shane shook his head and sighed. "Never mind. You were probably just talking without thinking again," Shane dismissed his sister's comment.

"Yeah. You know me," Stephanie replied, secretly glad that her brother didn't prod any further.

"So anyways," Ella changed the subject, "when are you getting back on TV?"

"I honestly don't know. But I'd like to get back on soon. I miss it," Shane reminisced.

"Maybe we can get you worked in within the next month," Stephanie suggested.

"Don't overdo the McMahon on TV thing," Ella reminded Stephanie.

"We won't. Well," Stephanie said after a moment of consideration, "we'll try not to. We can't help ourselves. We love this business too much."

Ella smiled, knowing that it was in their blood. "So no guarantee," Ella translated.

Stephanie gave her friend a guilty look. "What can I say?"

"That you'll try to remember the advice that you're paying me for," Ella answered sweetly. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter whether or not you remember it. As long as I get paid, you can forget it and ask for it again."

"It's good to know that you have our best interest at heart," Shane laughed.

"Of course," Ella responded smartly.

Shane simply rolled his eyes.

Ella collapsed onto her bed. After driving home, she did some laundry and finished some paperwork. She had the next few days off until Monday when she would drive to New York City for "Raw." She enjoyed watching the shows more than she thought that she would. The wrestlers all seemed nice enough and the divas were pretty sweet. She wondered when Rob would call her again. She knew that he had house shows, but maybe he could squeeze in some time for her. At that moment, she decided to take Stephanie's advice and give Rob a chance if he offered.

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Ending Author's Note: Ok… so there it was. I didn't really like the ending… but oh well. I'll just try to make the next one better. I hope you all enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I know I say it at the end of every chapter, but I really mean it! It means a lot to me. The reviews are what keep me going. I'll try and hurry to write and upload the next chapter. Thanks again!


	9. Chapter 9: Cackling

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Author's Note: I'm not doing very well at the whole "I'll try to update more often" thing, am I? I didn't think so. Sorry. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing you haven't read before. So let's just skip this whole rambling section and get into the story…

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Chapter 9: Cackling - June 19, 2003

"DETAILS! I need details!" Stephanie shrieked into her cell phone.

"Calm down, Stephanie," Ella instructed the older woman.

"Ok, ok, ok. I'm calm," Stephanie said hurriedly. "_Now_ will you tell me what happened?"

Ella rolled her eyes at the other end of the phone line. "Nothing happened. We had lunch. Then we went home. Well, _I_ went home and he probably went to a hotel 'cause he doesn't live here… but that's not the point. My point is that _nothing happened_. I know you want to believe that something did, but nothing did." Ella could almost see Stephanie pouting.

"And _why_ didn't anything happen?" Stephanie pried.

"Because a car alarm went off."

"What?" Stephanie asked, confused at the response.

"Something was _gonna_ happen, but a car alarm went off."

"He was gonna kiss you!" Stephanie shouted.

Ella pulled the phone away from her ear due to Stephanie's screams. Once they had subsided, Ella remarked that she shouldn't tell Stephanie anything ever again.

"Even if you shouldn't, you would because you love me so much," Stephanie retorted cheekily.

"As much as I hate to admit it, it's true. You're like a sister to me," Ella admitted.

Stephanie cooed. "Aww! I love you too! We're soul sistahs!"

"No," Ella replied quickly. "Never say that again!" she laughed.

"What? I can be ghetto… yo," Stephanie stuttered a bit.

"No way, Dog," Ella mocked.

"Well," Stephanie huffed. "I've never been so insulted in my life!"

"Are you sure? I've read some of the stuff that Chris Jericho has said to you…"

"That was all scripted. Besides, Chris doesn't really think that of me," Stephanie said defensively.

"Or maybe that's just what he wants you to think."

"If he didn't like me, why would he care if I knew?" Stephanie asked.

"Because then you could tell your dad that he actually meant those things and he could get fired."

"But he should know that my dad wouldn't fire him just because he doesn't like me."

"Well maybe he doesn't know that."

"That's true," Stephanie agreed. "I mean, he _is_ a blonde."

"And so is your fiancé," Ella reminded her friend.

"Oh yeah. Well, he's an exception." Stephanie gasped, "Did you hear about Chris?"

"What?"

"He's getting a divorce," Stephanie confided in her friend.

"I didn't know he was married," Ella replied. "But what happened?"

"He has no idea. He called me this morning, heartbroken. His wife sprung it on him. Apparently they have 'irreconcilable differences.' He thought they were happy together."

"Poor thing," Ella said.

"Yeah. He's one of my best friends too. I feel so bad for him. He really loved Jessica."

"And he has no idea why she wants a divorce?" Ella questioned.

"None whatsoever."

"Aww. Poor guy."

"Yeah. She was so sweet too. They seemed perfect for each other. I don't know what could've gone wrong, unless she met someone else, because Chris is not the kind of guy to cheat on his wife," Stephanie explained.

"Yeah, he doesn't sound like it as crazy as he seems," Ella commented.

"So I'll be in New York with you guys on Monday to see Chris," Stephanie informed her friend.

"And Paul," Ella added knowingly.

"And Paul," Stephanie repeated. "But me and Chris are really close too, ya know? He needs me."

"Yeah, how do you not grow close with someone who calls you a slut, among other unflattering names?" Ella questioned, laughing.

"Well, it does bring two people closer together," Stephanie said sighed.

"What's wrong?" Ella asked hearing something in Stephanie's voice.

"The wedding," Stephanie answered. "It's just stressing me out with all the plans. And then we have to figure out how to get the both of us off TV, but that will get taken care of when it gets closer to the date. I'm so nervous."

"You have four months. You'll be fine. And if you need any help planning, you know you have me," Ella reminded her friend.

"Thanks. So when are you and Rob gonna go out again? And finally _kiss_?" Stephanie pried, like usual.

"Well, I talked to him earlier and he's gonna come over and we're gonna have dinner here," Ella slowly revealed to her friend.

Ella could hear Stephanie trying to contain her squeals of delight. "That sounds nice," Stephanie let out through clenched teeth.

"Go ahead," Ella sighed.

Stephanie screamed in excitement. "If you keep this up, you two can get engaged by August and get married with me and Paul in October. See? Things are turning out perfectly!"

Ella laughed. "You're crazy. At least you haven't started naming our children for us," Ella joked.

"You're gonna have kids! See? You and Rob _are_ gonna get married. Oh! I know! We can have our kids together. Well not _together_ as in you and me together conceiving a child, but you can have your baby and I can have my baby at the same time! And our kids can get married!" Stephanie babbled.

"What if they're both boys?"

"So they'll be gay. No big deal," Stephanie shrugged. "And if they're not, we can always have more."

Ella shook her head. "Should I be writing any of this down?"

"Only if you want. If you don't, I'll remember everything. Now… what was I talking about?"

"Shane's wife," Ella answered.

"Oh, right, I don't like her. I don't want her at my wedding but Shane has this thing where he thinks she should go or something like that. I don't know. I didn't bother listening to him. But he's known her since he was in high school. I guess he felt obligated or whatever. He says it's love, but I don't believe him."

"I need to meet her," Ella commented.

"You do. You should totally hit on Shane when you meet her!" Stephanie suggested.

"Jealous type?"

"That's an understatement. She likes to know where he is 24/7. I'm surprised that she doesn't have a tracking device on him or something," Stephanie said.

"Maybe I should," Ella toyed with the idea.

"Please. You have no idea how much I would enjoy that," Stephanie begged.

Ella grinned. "Ok."

Stephanie practically cackled. "So when do you wanna meet her? Pick a date, I'll invite Shane while Marissa's there and I'm positive that once she finds out that a woman that's not family will be at dinner, she'll tag along."

"Why wasn't she there last time I came over?"

"Oh, I didn't tell Shane that you were coming, duh! But anyways, pick a date," Stephanie instructed her friend.

"Right. How's Saturday? Or tomorrow even. But I'd go for Saturday. I need to practice my 'I-want-Shane' looks."

"Eew. But Saturday's fine. Come over around 4."

"Alright," Ella agreed.

"And wear something low-cut and tight," Stephanie consulted her friend.

"We'll see."

Stephanie squealed. "This is gonna be _so_ much fun!"

"I'll see you Saturday."

"Ok. Bye. And kiss Rob!"

"Bye." With that, Ella hung up and started to laugh a bit at Stephanie's antics. She really did love the girl to death, but sometimes she acted like she was still six-years-old. But that only amused Ella even more.

Pushing Stephanie to the back of her mind, she decided to start getting ready. She already had the garlic bread ready to pop into the oven. And she just had to heat the sauce and boil the noodles. The salad was chilling in the fridge.

She walked into her room and began rummaging through her closet. 

She found a dark red long-sleeved shirt with a v-neck and a black skirt that stopped at mid-thigh. She found a pair of black heels to go with her outfit. She rolled her hair onto some large steam rollers that had been heating up for the last fifteen minutes. She had about half an hour before Rob showed up, if he showed up on time that is. She rushed back into the adequate kitchen and put the spaghetti noodles into the pot of simmering water. She didn't want the food to be cold so she planned on taking everything out of the pot once he got there. And if he showed up early, she could just turn up the heat on the stove.

She began setting the table until everything was perfect. She then pulled out a few candles to set a romantic mood. She honestly had no idea why she was going through so much trouble for dinner with a guy she had only met that week. But she didn't have time to think about that. She put a jazz CD into her stereo and adjusted the volume so it would play softly in the background. About ten minutes. She scurried back into the kitchen and slid the sheet of garlic bread into the oven. She then ran into her bedroom and took out the curlers. They didn't hold very well, but that was the plan. She just wanted a slight curl at the bottom and that was what she got. About five minutes. 

She busied herself by just picking at her nails, a bad habit of hers when she was nervous.

When there was a knock at her door, she was actually startled. Smoothing her already impeccable outfit, she went over to the door and slowly opened the door. As soon as it was open, she opened the door to reveal a grinning Rob with a bouquet of roses in his hands.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she returned, stepping aside. "Come in."

"Thanks," he replied, entering her apartment. "You look really nice. Not that you usually don't. Oh, these are for you." He handed the flowers over to Ella.

"They're beautiful. Thank you," she said. "I'm just gonna go put these in water. Sit down." With that, she hurried into the kitchen and found a vase. Filling it with water, she arranged the roses then set them on the counter. She pulled out the garlic bread from the oven and turned off the stove.

"It smells really good!" he complimented from the couch. "Do you need any help?"

"No, don't worry about it," she said, piling the plates with food. She took them and placed them on the small table in the dining room. She took a deep breath as she went back into the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of wine and two glasses. "Just relax," she whispered to herself.

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Author's Note: Ok… _now_ I can do the rambling thing. I'm so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry that I haven't updated in _forever_! I don't know why. Well…actually I do. I couldn't think of anything to write, I didn't have much time, and I started other stories when I did have time. If you would like to read those… *hint hint* you can go to fiction press.com… it's under the same pen name. So yeah. But thank you to all the reviewers and readers (even the ones who don't review, and that would be all of you readers because if you reviewed then you would be a reviewer). But seriously, thanks. I really appreciate you all sticking with me on this story and encouraging me to continue writing. That's all. Love you guys!


	10. Chapter 10: Spaghetti And Laundry

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Author's Note: I'm very saddened. I only got _one_ review for the last chapter. I know I haven't updated in a long time… but this is a cruel and unusual punishment! So please, PLEASE review this chapter!!!! Please! If you could see me, I am on my knees… ok I'm not really… but if it adds to the effectiveness of my gravelling, then you can picture me on my knees begging for reviews. Now on to the chapter!

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Chapter 10: Spaghetti And Laundry

"Dinner looks good," Rob complimented, pulling out Ella's chair for her.

"Thank you. It's really nothing. Boil some water, toss some things in the pot. No biggie," she laughed. "I was never that great at cooking."

"Well, I am an excellent cook if I do say so myself," Rob replied, taking his own seat.

"I never understood why people said, '… if I do say so myself,' 'cause they are saying it themselves," Ella pointed out.

Rob thought about it for a second.

"Wouldn't you just take out the 'if' because that's almost questioning whether you say it yourself or not?" Ella questioned.

Rob's look of thought turned into one of confusion. "I think you're just over-analyzing the statement," Rob smiled.

"That's my job," she reminded him. "Research, analyze. Research, analyze."

"Sounds safer than getting your ass kicked - or kicking ass in my case - practically every night."

"Well, you know, there's the very serious case of ink on the hands and occasionally the life-threatening paper cut," Ella said melodramatically.

"Forgot about those. Can never be too careful around those darn pieces of paper."

Ella grinned. "Eat," she commanded, noticing that Rob hadn't touched anything yet.

Looking down at his plate, Rob stated, "I don't know where to start." He picked up his fork 

"Try the spaghetti before it gets cold," she advised him.

He willingly obliged, circling his fork in the pile of spaghetti. "Ish ih heehy ooh!" Rob said, his mouth full of pasta. He loudly slurped a dangling noodle into his mouth.

"Thank you… I think," Ella said, barely able to suppress her giggles.

As Rob swallowed his food, he asked, "What?"

Ella had to turn away before she lost her self control. Facing him again, she said, "You may be a grown man, but you eat spaghetti like a three-year-old."

Rob sent her a confused look.

Ella picked up her napkin and leaned across the table. Gently, she wiped his chin and the corners of his mouth.

"Oh," he grinned impishly.

Ella sat back down, biting her lip to hold in her laughter.

"You think that's funny?"

Ella could only manage a nod before her laughter broke out.

"Well, what do you think about this?" With that, Rob stuck two of his fingers in the spaghetti, liberally coating them in the sauce. He then proceeded to lean over the table and wipe the red mixture on Ella's forehead.

Her jaw dropped at his audacity. "I was only laughing 'cause you had a little sauce on your nose!"

"I do?" he questioned. In an attempt to see if she was telling the truth, Rob crossed his eyes.

Ella began giggling. "You look absolutely ridiculous!"

"You think I look ridiculous?" he replied, looking her in the eyes. "Well I'm not the one with spaghettis sauce on her forehead."

"No, you're the one with spaghetti sauce on his _nose_," she retorted cheekily.

"Well," he began, picking up the bottle of salad dressing, "you're the one with salad dressing in her hair." He squeezed the opened bottle over her head causing the white cream to ooze down Ella's head.

As Rob sat down, Ella leaned over the table and grabbed the sides of his face and pulled it down into his spaghetti. Before letting go though, she wiggled his head in it to make sure that he would be covered in the sauce. "And you're the one covered in spaghetti sauce."

Once Ella let go, Rob slowly lifted his head up. "I'm also the one with spaghetti sauce _up_ his nose." He then picked up the bottle of wine and inspected it then opened it. He poured both himself and Ella a glass.

She watched him cautiously as he did this.

"How about a toast?" he suggested, putting down the wine bottle and lifting his glass.

Ella mimicked his actions and picked up her own glass.

"To… spaghetti."

"To spaghetti," she echoed. But before she could take a sip of the dark liquid, Rob threw the liquid in his own glass in Ella's face.

Rob set down his glass and watched Ella, waiting for her next move.

Calmly, she put her own glass, which was still full, back on the table. She then mixed the salad dressing in her spaghetti, creating more sauce than before. She then scooped some up in her hand and ran her hand through Rob's hair, which, luckily for her, he wore down. After his hair was well-coated with her mixture of ranch and tomato sauce, she began to style his hair, using his fork to part it down the middle. She then used her concoction to gel it down against his scalp. "There!" she triumphantly exclaimed. "Oh," she said before grabbing her wine glass and dumping its contents onto Rob's lap. "Now I'm done."

"I probably look like a hippie going to prep school and has a bladder problem," Rob muttered.

"Maybe we both need to go to school to learn how to eat and not play with our food," Ella commented through her giggles.

"Yeah," Rob agreed, feeling his poor hair.

"We should probably get cleaned up. And maybe I should go first, that way I can go downstairs and run your clothes through the wash while you're in the shower. I have some laundry to do anyways," she laughed.

"Some first date," Rob grinned.

"Well, it's definitely a memorable one."

"That it is," he concurred, leaning against the back of is chair and admiring Ella. Even with ranch in her hair, spaghetti sauce on her forehead, and the top of her blouse darkened with wine, she still looked gorgeous in his eyes.

Clearing her throat, Ella stood up and said, "I'm gonna go get cleaned up now."

"I'll clean up the table," Rob offered.

"No," Ella stopped him. "Don't worry about it. I'll just do it later."

"I helped make this mess," Rob argued stubbornly, "so it's only fair that I clean up."

"Really, just leave it."

Rob sighed. "Fine."

"I'll be right out," she told him, going into her bedroom.

Once the door was closed, Rob began clearing the table. He took all the dishes into the kitchen. Realizing that she probably wouldn't want to save the food, he threw it all away in the garbage can under the sink, which he found after a few minutes of searching. Then he washed all the dishes for her, wiggling around the whole time due to the wetness in his crotch from the wine. After finishing and putting the dishes on the rack to dry, he found a rag and wiped the table clean. As he put the rag back in the kitchen, Ella emerged in a pair of gray sweatpants and a red tank top and matching red thong flip-flops.

"I thought I told you not to clean," Ella complained.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you got so much pleasure out of playing Cinderella," Rob replied laughing.

"Well, thank you, even though you shouldn't have," she slightly scolded. "Now, how do we get you cleaned up?"

"Good question."

"Umm… why don't you go into my room and undress, and leave your clothes in there, then go into my bathroom. And once you have the door shut and everything, start the shower and I'll go into my room and get your clothes," Ella suggested. 

Rob tried not to laugh at the blush in Ella's cheeks. "You look like the idea of me being naked in your apartment is something to be ashamed of."

"It just sounded really… awkward," Ella laughed.

"It did. But it'll work," Rob grinned. "So, I'm off."

Ella merely watched Rob go into her bedroom and close the door. It really was awkward knowing that he was in her bedroom… getting naked… As long as she didn't mention that she wasn't in the room with Rob, Stephanie would be happy. But then of course, Stephanie would probably think that they had some sort of kinky, porno-like scene.

Hearing the shower, Ella was snapped out of her train of thought. She entered her bedroom slowly, just in case. Seeing Rob's clothes in a pile in front of the bathroom door, she scooped them up and threw them onto a pile of her clothes that needed to be washed. Picking the bundle up, she walked downstairs to where the washing machines were. There were three, and considering it was dinner time, no one was down there. She quickly sorted the clothes and put them in two machines. This usually took about twenty minutes so she decided to go back up to her apartment.

When she went back inside, she heard the shower still running. She went into the kitchen and found that Rob had not only cleared the table but washed the dishes as well. She began to put the dishes back into the cupboard.

Halfway through, she heard her bedroom door open and Rob came out with only a towel wrapped around his waist. Seeing Ella through the open doorway, he said, "I would've put them away too, but I didn't know where they went."

Ella could only stare at Rob. His well-sculpted chest had a few beads of water slipping down it from his dripping hair. "Don't worry about," she stammered, blushing slightly.

"So, how long will it take?"

"Probably about forty more minutes. It would've taken less time, but I threw in some of my clothes in there," Ella explained.

"You just wanted to see me in a towel longer," Rob accused jokingly.

Ella gasped, feigning surprise. "How on earth did you know?"

"'Cause I'm R-V-D," he said, only using one hand to point at himself so that the other could hold on to the towel.

"Of course, how could I have forgotten?" Ella smiled. "Why don't we sit down? Your towel… well… my towel might be safer."

"Good idea. If I sit down, it can't fall. Or at least not very far," Rob commented, taking a seat on Ella's couch.

Almost cautiously, Ella took a seat next to Rob. It wasn't everyday that a towel-clad wrestler was alone with her on her couch. And Ella thought she was handling the situation very well for being her first time. But then again… how many other times would this happen?

"What are you thinking about?" Rob questioned, noticing Ella's distant look.

"Oh," Ella replied, "just how weird this kind of is. I mean, first date and you're already naked."

"I have a towel," Rob reminded her.

"Well… almost naked then," she laughed.

"But yes, I guess it is a little awkward. So, what are you gonna tell Stephanie?" Rob asked knowingly.

"What?" Ella asked, somewhat surprised by the question.

"I know you girls gossip about everything. And you and Stephanie seem really close. So what are you gonna tell her happened?"

"Well, I have two options. Tell her just enough of the truth to make her that what she wanted to happen happened. Or I could tell her the _whole_ truth," Ella said, using her hands as though she were physically weighing her options.

"I'd tell her what she wants to hear. Then after she's all happy, tell her the rest of it," Rob plotted.

"That's so mean!" Ella exclaimed. "But it'd be really funny," she admitted.

"It's not your fault if she takes things the wrong way," Rob offered.

"Definitely true," Ella nodded in agreement. "And just to make her suffer a little more by ignoring her calls all day tomorrow."

"Then when are you gonna tell her?"

"Day after tomorrow. I'm having dinner with her and everybody else. We have the best plan for Shane," Ella squealed excitedly.

"Really?" Rob asked, slightly cocking his eyebrow in a Rock-like fashion. "And what is this 'plan?'"

"Well when I went over there yesterday, we were just joking around with Shane about how I wanted to seduce him, and I think he took me a bit too seriously," Ella explained. "So we're just gonna have a little fun with that," she said innocently.

Rob chuckled in response. "I wish I could be there to see his face."

"Maybe you can. If you were Stephanie and you really wanted us to get together, and I ignored you the day after a date with you that you knew about, then wouldn't you be even more curious if I showed up with you?"

Rob stared at her. "So if I'm Stephanie, and you went out with me and I knew, but I'm Stephanie and you show up to my house with me… I lost you."

Ella laughed. "Ok, we go to Stephanie's together. I don't talk to her tomorrow, and I know she'll call asking about tonight. Then you come with me to dinner. Wouldn't that make you even _more_ curious and even more inclined to think that something happened if I did that and you were in Stephanie's position?"

"Oh, I see where this is going. But I can't," Rob told her sticking his lower lip out sadly.

Ella pouted. "Why not?"

"We have a house show."

"Oh. Well, you can't skip work."

"But if it makes any difference, I'd rather go with you."

Ella bit her lip to stop herself from smiling _too_ widely. "That's sweet."

"I really enjoyed tonight. It's been the most fun I've had in a while."

"Me too," she replied. Glancing at her watch, she said, "I better go put your clothes in the dryer. They should be done by now."

"Right," he nodded almost dreamily.

"I'll be right back," she said, walking out the door.

Rob could just hear Paul's voice now… "She's got you whipped."

~*~*~*~*~*~

****

Ending Author's Note: Ok… yeah… I'm not too happy with how this chapter turned out. I really wanted to write it… but once I started writing, it just kinda turned out crappy. But at least I updated. And for that I should get at lest one review from everyone who reads this! So go! Stop reading my stupid, rambling note and review because if you're still reading this then you're not reviewing, and that's what I told you to do! So now I'm gonna stop typing and let you all review!


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